Nas et De La Soul

The son of a Jazz musician, Nas was born with a musical thirst, one that was channeled into hip hop under the influence of neighbor and friend ‘Ill Will’. Even after dropping out of high school, Nas continued to educate himself, utilizing his intellectual life view in his rhymes as he began to garner attention from the likes of producer Large Professor. At just 18, Nas recorded a stand-out verse on Main Source’s ‘Live at The Barbeque’ propelling him to new heights and even securing him a record deal from Columbia under the management of 3rd Bass’ ‘MC Serch’.

With the hype building, Nas was hailed as the best MC since ‘Rakim’ and delivered a certified classic album with his debut, Illmatic. Nas’ complex and insightful rhymes met with world class production and made for a hip hop album unlike anything before it. The album received five mics from ‘The Source’ and is now considered one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time.

The album however, did not translate into commercial success and with mounting pressure from his label, Nas began to slide towards a more mainstream sound for the next run of albums which included ‘I Am…’ and ‘Nastradamus’.

It took a now legendary beef with fellow New York rapper Jay Z to set him back on the right track. Nas countered Jay’s ‘The Takeover’ with the lethal diss song ‘Ether’ which fuelled the release of the ‘Stillmatic’ album and re-secured Nas’ place as one of Hip Hop’s premier talents. He has maintained this success through follow up albums and huge festival appearances and in 2014 a documentary was released documenting the importance of ‘Illmatic’ and Nas on Hip Hop’s history.

Made up of Posdnuos, Dave and Maseo, De La Soul’s debut album, “3 Feet High and Rising,” released on March 3rd, 1989 became a critical smash hit in the hip-hop genre. They became prominent members of the Native Tongues Posse along with A Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, Queen Latifah the Jungle Brothers and more. It was also the single “Me Myself and I” that became a huge hit, further cementing the group’s popularity. Unfortunately, the sixties pop group, The Turtles, sued De La Soul for using a sample from their 1969 hit “You Shows Me” for the interlude track “Transmitting Live from Mars”, despite them not even writing the original song. All of this aside, the album made it to #24 in the Billboard Music Charts. It has been dubbed as “One of the greatest albums ever made” by the NME, “The Sgt. Pepper of hip-hop” by the Village Voice. It was also #5 on the top 100 albums of the century, according to Spex.

Their following album, “De La Soul Is Dead”, was released on May 13th 1991. It is highly regarded in the hip-hop community as a classic. The album’s title is in reaction to the group being labelled hippies following its debut release. The album cover, a broken pot of daisies, signals the end of the D.A.I.S.Y age. It has been labelled as edgier than it’s first release. Despite not selling as many units as the previous album, it quickly became a cult classic. The Source magazine listed the album as one of their top 100 hip hop albums of all time, stating that “its true genius is rarely understood”.

Throughout their career, they evolved and transcended, stylistically and musically. There were moments on the album, “Buhloone Mindstate” that proved that the band had matured. “I Be Blowin” was a departure as the track was an instrumental featuring saxophone playing by Maceo Parker. “Breakadawn” featured a sample of Michael Jackson’s “I Can’t Help It” and Smokey Robinson’s “Quiet Storm”. Each album that they released, would gain the kind of critical reputation that would solidify its place as one of the most “influential albums” or “best hip-hop album”.

After a few years out, they made a comeback with their album “Plug 1 & Plug 2 Present…First Serve.” It was in collaboration with French DJ duo Chokolate and Khalid, released on April 2nd 2012.