It's one of the best mistakes I have ever purchased. To be fair , while "The Atlantic" aren't experts on hip hop , they are notorious for their expertise on making mistakes so maybe I should hear them out.
It's very strange to suggest that De La Soul is dead represented the death of 'an alternative path for hip hop'. Not withstanding the many popular examples of 'dad rock samples' in hip hop (Kanye!), the 3 Feet High aesthetic brand has remained influential. Look at Chance the Rapper's acid rap and colouring book brand. Look at Mm food. He's talking like Buhloone Mind state didn't happen. Like a Prince among thieves didn't happen. Like the Gorrillaz collabs didn't happen. De La and Prince Paul's artistry has continually enriched and expanded things in all areas of hip hop making both the mainstream and underground's more thoughtful and ambitious
It's really just sour grapes. The mainstream media saw (and still sees) gangster rap as threatening, which is ironic as those same writers would probably would heap praises upon punk rock despite falling under the same umbrella. There's a reason why Arrested Development won so many mainstream awards back in the day while The Chronic was mostly snubbed.
This is Del The Funky, this fool take was disgusting, De La Soul Is Dead was brilliant, the whole concept was crazy! The skits were crazy, the music was fire. Homeboy obviously don’t know shit. Good looking OME for covering this, you did great 🎉
"An act of self nullification that the band never recovered from" ...as he writes 30 years from the album in question, the irony is stalking bro like Freddy, he just can't see it
De La Soul is Dead is my favorite album of theirs. I don't know if it's a better album than 3 feet by any objective measure, but it's their album that I most consistently return to over time.
There’s a running theme in your videos, one that feels so important in this age of disfunctional media. I would describe it as “what gives you the right to speak on this”. It makes me remember learning the classical rhetorical device of “ethos” -the conveyance of one’s authority on a subject. I agree with you that it seems to be greatly lacking in conversations about hip hop. It’s a symptom of an even bigger issue in the discourse but I admire you greatly for standing up to it
This article / reaction reminded me of 2 things: 1. Every piece of music journalism in 89-92 outside of the small hip-hop mag scene; 2. NPR on Trugoys passing, claiming De La's great sonic innovation was how they sampled James Brown
Man I saw this article and comic book steam started coming out my ears. Without De La Soul Is Dead I might not have had the joy of hip-hop music in my life as early as I got it. I got 3 feet high, and I loved it, but when they dropped this, I was like, fuck. I will follow this group forever. They're brilliant. They can be DAISY age or they can be the guys on bitties in the BK lounge. They're making meta jokes about themselves but the rhymes and beats were still dope. From there I branched out, I was real young, it changed me. How many albums can you say that about. Thanks for the expert takedown. been missing the streams due to life bullshit but I'll be back -- FanonAndOn
So De La is my all time favorite and this is my favorite album of theirs. I consider myself a direct descendant of their stuff. This article is hilarious.
They had to change their image, not only for their own personal reasons, but for business purposes, because they could never make another album like 3FHAR - because the sample laws got more complicated.
Every few days, I go to The Atlantic just to read the article titles, get mad that there are people that think The Atlantic has anything to say about anything, and then close my browser tab having clicked on nothing. I also find most retrospective album reviews pretty shallow and like more of an exercise of someone safely pontificating about their great taste. I guess at least this author has the nerve to write a genuinely stupid opinion. Writers not steeped in hip hop should pause and think before they attempt hip hop historiography, because it usually ends up shallow and/or contrarian. I appreciate the depth of your takes and projects of researching and exploring hip hop history from a stance of the same genuine enthusiasm and curiosity you rap from. BTW, an "urtext" is like an earliest complete publication/copy of a piece of art. It's a term in classical music that reflects musicians trying to find an original of the score of a piece, since copies get made and subtle changes get made along the way from editors who are reflecting performance practices of their day, or sometimes adding typos or interpreting ink marks that are unclear. People often go back to manuscripts of Bach's music (from 300 years ago) when they think too much stuff has been added throughout the years in an effort to find a different kind of sound. Sometimes it can be a kind of fetishism that 'if I just play from the right edition, I'll have a legitimate interpretation of the piece', but there were also performance practices in Bach's day that were just understood and not written down, so it's tough to say what the 'original way' of playing really would be, or if Bach wouldn't prefer to hear his music on modern instruments. (It's also a term in literature and for stuff like biblical scholarship, where translations can accrete all kinds of stuff over the years). Maybe a more rap-relevant question would be: If Kanye puts out like 10 janky versions of a song, with one version being released on a CD and another being released on a birth control pill case, then which version do hypebeasts decide is the 'right one'? (sorry for the lengthy digression)
A few years ago I found a political journalist using a phrase to describe other people in politics and journalism that I'm very grateful to have adopted. "Unserious". It has been an immensely useful label to explain that someone just isn't trying and isn't worth my attention, or anyone else's for that matter. That's not to say you shouldn't be slamming this dude and explaining why he's wrong -- that's a very valuable service to many communities, and I appreciate you for it, Mike 🙏
I aaw de la soul at a music festival in the UK about two years ago and they easily drew the biggest crowd of any hip hop group ive ever seen at a uk festival - even more than wu tang and tribe in years id been to previously. Young crowd too. They absolutely still relevant and loved
Why the hell is *The Atlantic* of all publications attempting to rewrite the narrative about an all-time classic album 33 years after it came out?? Especially weird since said album only recently appeared on streaming services for the first time.
This is why I don't post, this is why I don't write for magazines, because I don't know shit about shit and having someone eviscerate me like this would make me never leave my room again! 😬
I'm commenting as I'm listening. That first paragraph already shows how tone deaf he is to hip- hop culture. "Dad rock" samples? That's how a person who was never invested in the culture would retroactively describe the tone of that album, but it shows a lack of understanding because "dad rock" couldn't be further from the truth. He heard Hall and Oates and Steely Dan, and labeled the entire thing "dad rock samples." I grew up listening to hip-hop and I get defensive when people come around later and try to redefine the music without having any context. I like how you put it: "touch rap grass." What bothers me is guys like this don't have a valid opinion, but the people who gave him his job give him an opinion that other people can then view as valid. I'm currently trying, attempting, to list my top 250 hip hop albums of all time and I have "....Is Dead" at 5, behind Wu-Tang, Low End Theory, Madvillain, and Illmatic. It's one of the best ever and deserves to be. It was a statement on the entire culture, not just "dad rock samples."
Would Can’t Go For That and Peg even be considered “dad rock” at the time 3 Feet came out? The whole article feels like he’s trying to contextualize for others something he wasn’t even around for.
@@SpektakOne That's a good question. I don't know for sure but this like legit upsets me because I grew up with this music, and it feels like another person, who was never in the game, trying to re-contextualize it. Just no. I viewed this album as a statement on the entirety of hip-hop, as there was suddenly this spectrum of gangster rap and the conscious movement. I think Tommy Boy wanted to label them as hippies and to me, "Is Dead" was De La basically saying, we're going to be whoever we want to be, not who our label or fans want us to be.
makes me wanna recall Frank zappa saying, “Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read”. music critics are simply pencil pushers
This is nuts, but also the art of headline writers and copy editors is key in creating these clickbait lines which sometimes overstate the theme of the article. And also of oldheads who remember the late 80s discourse about hip hop using sampling, also sparked by white rock crits, which reached the level of Village Voice and Spin magazine and resulted in Harry Allen being invited to do a sample on Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype". This lore is from me, a confessed white music fan and oldhead who has been a hip hop fan from 1986 and remembers these infighting culture wars. History repeats. It's all noise, there is a great story to be told in the margins about exploitation and marketing in the role of pop music, "black/urban/"crossover" music and specifically hip-hop as it started to break. This commentary is an essential part of it and thank you SO MUCH for saying it
'is dead' was the perfect follow-up to '3 feet', imo, but someone trying to listen to it for the first time now is unlikely to notice the influential, landmark or pioneering moments. you literally had to be there and even then, you had to be 'ready' for it. to really get it. but if you were chosen, words can't even describe what it meant, or did. but, exclusivity and exceptionalism aside, i think it could still hit certain chosen ones moving forward and there's no such thing as bad publicity, even tho' people can be sheep and influence, cheap. like the reviewer's audio system must have been. or is it more like the shibboleth concept where we don't mind that he doesn't feel it or get it? wouldn't it be more disturbing if everyone 'got it' all these years later?
Well said. It's all there on the album, too. They literally say The Daisy Age is dead. Bitties in the BK Lounge has someone talking about one of the De La Soul punching someone who thought he wasn't when he was. There's also My Brother is a Basshead, describing the onset of the crack epidemic. It's also wild to discuss De La's career without mentioning the changed legal situation around sampling and how that has affected the making and distribution of their art to this day.
TRIVIA HipHop in England broke fairly late as compared to the rest of Europe as compared to places such as Amsterdam. And it was De La Souls 3 Feet High and Rising that proved to be the album that garnered both critical and commercial success on major scale in the UK and elevated American HipHop into the nation's pop music conversation. Even up to today it continues to always make the top albums lists in English rock magazines such as NME and Melody Maker along with the likes of such classic records as the Sex Pistols and Oasis and Stone Roses debuts.
going to high school from 2014-2018 I have experienced an incredible amount of horrible white boy takes whenever a new album would come out. I dont know why white people get insanely turned off when artists differ from whatever they were expecting. Its like once they discover an artist they take ownership over what they are and their place in music. shit would piss me off so much cause I would be like "nah this is like way better than the previous shit" and it would take them years to catch on if at all.
I didnt have a lot of exposure to hip hop when I was younger. I downloaded this album after I saw Video Dave recreating the cover in his stitches. I think its great. 'Pease Porridge' and 'Hey Love' were some of the highlights for me. I like the skits too; it adds personality to the record.
I might have to revisit this De La Soul is dead album. When I heard the album, my first thought was this album with career suicide. But I didn’t understand their battle with the industry about their image. I thought it was from the general public, mistaking them for hippies. Which I never did. I thought they look the concept and everything was fresh new take on hip-hop. It showed you didn’t have to be hard to be a rapper. You could be yourself. But I could not get into the second album at all.
this is the best work IMO! this is a masterpiece! still loved still successful. 33 years later they came out with the video for oodles of 0s. they are not soft at all. peas porridge in the pot talks about that situation. for these people that don't know de la soul in the mist of that era was a force to be reckoned with. peace.
This is a nightmare. This same argument was happening when IS DEAD first came out! And it was harrowing then, and it's annoyingly so now. There's so much...ignorance? racial stigmatizing? monolithic pandering and infantalizing? In these kinds of critiques. It's not an original position Weingarten takes, not at all; it's actually redundant. I really can't believe the same critique of this record is following them around 30+ years later, mayne. Talmout "dad rock"; those early rap samples were all music the djs and producers of the tracks heard/played in the early days of hip hop, back when looping breaks was what made the genre! None of those samples were used to placate this nerd's sensibilities, it was on some (playful) hood shit. And nobody cares what a white or white adjacent dude has to say about how 3 Black men express themselves with the styles they helped invent. So fkn ignorant.
Get ‘em Mike. Wasn’t aware of the article til this vid popped up in my feed and i clicked on it. The absolute blasphemy and ignorance that writer has. “Dad rock” lol. Let me just say this, De La Soul is Dead is my favorite album of any genre. And jesus, what a lack of appreciation for satire and social commentary. 😡😡😡 Thank you for this rebuttal.
Nice breakdown. De La and Native Tongues made it slick to be diverse in music, clothing, presentation. Especially in the age of Gangsta and political hip hop. For us the movement was fun, social, colorful and less stressed. The jazz influence made it made it chill. F' that writer.
11:18 This right here is what irks me the most about modern day music and entertainment writing in general! These people get things wrong all the time and get paid and get to write for reputable publications/sites. 😾
I agree with you, however, calling the Atlantic “reputable” is giving them too much credit. Absolute trash neoliberal rag, their political takes are even worse than the music ones.
People talking confidently, but ignorantly, based on a sliver of understanding. I see this play out all throughout society, unfortunately. Once you grock it, it's like being Roddy Piper looking through the glasses in "They Live". If people said less, listened more, and adopted more rounded perspectives, we'd all be better off in so many ways. Hell, maybe we could chart one of these so called alternative paths!
I think the article is a review of a new book by Marcus Moore "High and Rising" so it's not clear how much is based on the book and how much is based on Weingarten's opinion. De La Soul have said they are looking at legal action, apparently, because the book is not authorised. I'd be interested in a follow up on this video.
After learning that Me Myself and I was the last song on 3 Feet I can only hear it as a prequel to DLSID. It's all there Btw I recently became a subscriber from the Prince Paul series, some of my favorite podcasting ever
De La Soul is Dead is my favorite De La album. I can't listen to the skits anymore, I can't believe my younger self enjoyed them so much. I had to make a playlist where I take out all of the skits and only list the songs that were on the cassette.
'There should have been more Steely Dan samples' is such a selfish consumer brain-poisoned critique. Like the type of thing you hear from someone who's black out drunk
this reminds me of when some nytimes writer said MS LAURYN HILL'S lyric "so while you're imitating al capone, i'll be nina simone/ and defecating on your microphone" was the WORST LYRIC of her career lolllll
Along with Public Enemy, De La Soul is one of my favorite Hip-Hop acts of all time. I loved 3 Feet High And Rising as well as Buhloone Mindstate, which I thought was every bit as brilliant. I never really gave De La Soul Is Dead much of a chance when it came out. I think I'm ready to give it another chance now.
As much as I love 3FHandR, De La Soul is Dead is my favorite De La album. It’s a masterpiece and literally changed my life. Oodles of O’s is one of the best rap album intro songs in hip hop history.
im a modern rap fan (playboi carti & yeat are in my top 5) but i still listen to this album sometimes. no other rappers from the 80s pique my interest. that means something
De La Soul Is Dead is one of the bravest albums and has one of the bravest cuts ever : Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa, were Dave raps as the bad guy. How many artists are willing to deconstruct their own success? It was the 2nd best album that year behind The Low End Theory. He missed the point of both De La albums by his fundamental misunderstanding of Dead.
Read about this in @TheAtlantic. It's a dumb take on three levels: 1) Sampling on the level that 3 Feet (and Paul's Boutique) did it was rendered unfeasible after those albums came out. Clearance lawsuits galore, lots of lost profits. No way they were repeating that mistake. 2) Prince Paul was doing other stuff (Def Jam imprint, other acts) making a simliar sounding album unlikely if not pointless. 3) A little band called Tribe Called Quest tore shit up with an evolved version of the aesthetic on People's Instinctive Travels... These guys were friends but also pushed each other, The idea that they'd come back with the same sound would have been corny AF and De La knew it. The writer is playing an interesting what if game but his conclusion is wrong. De La played it perfectly and we are still finding them seminal and interesting because of it.
I don’t like his headline on this article. I did not like the De La is dead album at all. But that’s how I felt about it. But 3 feet high and rising is in my top 3 hip hop albums of all time. It opened the world of hip hop up everyone. This writer is clueless.
you peeped the album again lately? I didn't love it when I first heard it but it spun it again a couple years ago and it was a lot better than I remembered it being
No alternative?! Yeah anyone that doesn’t know of Freestyle Fellowship and it’s influence shouldn’t be given the keys to hip hop journalism or criticism. There’s documentaries and Grammys at this point. Holy crap.
Is it possible that he doesnt mean there has been no path for alternative hip hop? Maybe all that he is saying that De La Soul's influence on the trajectory of alternative hip hop would have been greater had they doubled down on tommy boys hippie image. That opinion is still silly because i think de la soul is dead was plenty influential on the ethoa and trajectory of the underground more so than 3 feet high (looking at the roots, organized konfusion, company flow)
he probably needed to write more words in service of fleshing out that perspective if thats what he intended. but either way I would still disagree. it doesnt sound to me like he has any sort of handle on what the trajectory of alt hip hop has been
3 feet high samples the Turtles, Hall and Oats, the Funky Four Plus One More, the Beatles, James Brown the Godfather, Steely Dan, Kraftwerk, Otis Redding, the Isley Brothers, the Monkees, and Fatback Band, among others. That's a lot of samples and not a lot of dad rock
Unfortunately this is the Eminem effect. This is what happens when you let the guests run the house, his people think they run it too. This is what Benzino was trying to prevent, and it sucks because Eminem was a real talent but by using him to replace canibus and making him the best selling technical rhymer, this is what you get out of the rest of the industry. Sad.
This is a bad take also. While it's true, whitebois, especially Rock dudes, are usually ignorant af and have some of the worst takes. The only person responsible for Eminem's rapid rise was Dr. Dre. Then all these (mostly white) non Hip-hop heads boosted his sales and crown him king. There is no conspiracy. It's just Racism and capitalism playing out in Eminem's favor.
Tbf as much as I dislike Eminem's music, from what I've seen he's shown great appreciation for the culture and loves hip hop for the art and not clout like when he was supporting Tony Yayo or Boldy James after his car crash. With that said, his fans are absolutely less connected to the culture than Em is so idk if Em is to blame but he's by far the best selling hip hop artist iirc
@@babygrill01 I too give him grace for his authenticity, but once he knew they were trying to rap elvis him, he had a choice to NOT go along for the ride. It would probably have made his later career more memorable than it has been. It sounds weird saying he should've sabotaged what they were building around him, but that's what integrity is. Ali could've just served in the war, they wouldn't have put him in harms way, instead he gave up the belt and went to jail for two years and that's why he's the greatest ever hands down, black, white or otherwise.
@ of course he did! Didn’t you see him crying on drink champs? Eminem’s success led to the death of the Source magazine, his one contribution to Hip Hop.
Agree in full. Gotta say, in this day it's like media (social and trad) is like a bad beef tossed up by some clown who values the attention over accuracy or learning. Gotta deny them the views and bury these guys below the fold on page 12.
And I remember going to my first concert - JBs, De La & Tribe, and some dudes in the front row tried to start shit with De La until they saw all three of them put down the record crates they were bringing on stage, and start walking down. Each of their arms was as thick as most people's legs so... Suddenly people learned to the STFU. I feel like half the problem of the poorly informed would-be critic these days is that they're missing most of the context; the music available for streaming is like maybe 25% of the larger soundscape that was on radio, and radio was different when you had more Black owned radio stations instead of Clear Channel running things. You can't look at the top 20 and know the full sound people were hearing. Hiphop especially is always made in conversation with the musical community around it. Of course, so is good criticism... instead of contextualess colonizer music writers.
Agree the article is wack but as a huge fan who grew up in their neighborhood, always felt they could've embraced the alt image a bit more to sustain their level of success from the first album, instead of trying to "kill it" right away -- ultimately they still are who they are.
Annnnnd, he's not right about giving NWA urtex status like Schoolly D wasn't on this timeline.😂 When you go online to tell these mfs shut up, tag me in it.😂😂😂I'll help.
we live in the age of information with zero information processing and literacy skills. thank you for calling out that when we say "people just say shit" we mean good, smart, otherwise intelligent people just be out here, running their mouths, can't be bothered to check things.
This article probably from some AI that figured out De La has lots of fans and knows hate gets clicks or something. I’ll bet there’s no such person as Weingardner, the language smells of non-human
I read a lot of book coverage. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic honestly. Their book reviews are very hit and miss and I can't figure out exactly why.
aight. so i was as heated as you as i started. And I agree, my mans writes likes he's listened to a dozen golden era hip hop joints at most...("Dad rock samples" -- that ish was so offputting) i will say however, that, when it came out, it was a confusing message for a then highschool to college age brother who had been inspired so much from the aesthetic of 3ft. high -- At the time, it did feel like they were trying to distance themselves from the album, as they never had another one like it. In fact, looks like the author of "High and Rising" is asserting the same thing the writer of the Atlantic article did... I'd be curious to hear de la's take on it in 2024.
when I spoke to Prince Paul about it, he made it pretty clear that it wasnt the album they were distancing themselves from but the hippie image. they also cover it in the song It Aint Hip to be Labeled a Hippie
yeah i hear that. later, i did end up getting that out of it, and yeah my faux pas, you made that clear too..."it wasn't the music, it was the image"... i still miss they never returned to that quirkiness for anything else though, but then again, it's one of those things where they may could have only. just been one. paul's hand was all over their first joint though, so really a lot of it could be much of his influence vs. the entire group's...i'm thinking of something like handsome boy modeling school or prince among theives...which help (to me at least) illuminate this i think between 3 ft, dead, and buhloone, they evolved well.
In a world full of terrible hip hop takes, "De La Soul is Dead was a mistake" is easily one of the worst ever.
People who don't know what they're talking about (ie this rock writer) should not be writing about things that they don't understand imo
It's one of the best mistakes I have ever purchased.
To be fair , while "The Atlantic" aren't experts on hip hop , they are notorious for their expertise on making mistakes so maybe I should hear them out.
“So tired of hearing smart people saying dumb shit.” Stay out of Academia! 😂
Ayo it’s the professor!
What's up Professor? 😂
They joined academia for the money and the fame... paparazzi
i thought academia was dumb ppl saying "smart" shit but ok
Mr. Weingarten should have been listening more closely to skit #1. "What do you know about music, hamster penis?"
Lolllllllllllllll perfection
“some rock writer” is how they should be known forevermore.
It's very strange to suggest that De La Soul is dead represented the death of 'an alternative path for hip hop'. Not withstanding the many popular examples of 'dad rock samples' in hip hop (Kanye!), the 3 Feet High aesthetic brand has remained influential. Look at Chance the Rapper's acid rap and colouring book brand. Look at Mm food.
He's talking like Buhloone Mind state didn't happen. Like a Prince among thieves didn't happen. Like the Gorrillaz collabs didn't happen. De La and Prince Paul's artistry has continually enriched and expanded things in all areas of hip hop making both the mainstream and underground's more thoughtful and ambitious
It's really just sour grapes. The mainstream media saw (and still sees) gangster rap as threatening, which is ironic as those same writers would probably would heap praises upon punk rock despite falling under the same umbrella. There's a reason why Arrested Development won so many mainstream awards back in the day while The Chronic was mostly snubbed.
Brilliant!
@@AlexMax2742gangster rap and punk rock are just two different expressions of working class rage
This is Del The Funky, this fool take was disgusting, De La Soul Is Dead was brilliant, the whole concept was crazy! The skits were crazy, the music was fire. Homeboy obviously don’t know shit. Good looking OME for covering this, you did great 🎉
you’re del the funky homosapian?
man. very much appreciate you peeping it. youve been an inspiration for all of us
"An act of self nullification that the band never recovered from" ...as he writes 30 years from the album in question, the irony is stalking bro like Freddy, he just can't see it
De La Soul is Dead is my favorite album of theirs. I don't know if it's a better album than 3 feet by any objective measure, but it's their album that I most consistently return to over time.
There’s a running theme in your videos, one that feels so important in this age of disfunctional media. I would describe it as “what gives you the right to speak on this”. It makes me remember learning the classical rhetorical device of “ethos” -the conveyance of one’s authority on a subject. I agree with you that it seems to be greatly lacking in conversations about hip hop. It’s a symptom of an even bigger issue in the discourse but I admire you greatly for standing up to it
This article / reaction reminded me of 2 things: 1. Every piece of music journalism in 89-92 outside of the small hip-hop mag scene; 2. NPR on Trugoys passing, claiming De La's great sonic innovation was how they sampled James Brown
😦 Shame on NPR! Their great sonic innovation was sampling _George Clinton._
world historically dumb take from Mr. Marc
Yooo Wisecrack I didn’t expect to see you here! I already knew y’all had good taste but dang
Man I saw this article and comic book steam started coming out my ears. Without De La Soul Is Dead I might not have had the joy of hip-hop music in my life as early as I got it. I got 3 feet high, and I loved it, but when they dropped this, I was like, fuck. I will follow this group forever. They're brilliant. They can be DAISY age or they can be the guys on bitties in the BK lounge. They're making meta jokes about themselves but the rhymes and beats were still dope. From there I branched out, I was real young, it changed me. How many albums can you say that about. Thanks for the expert takedown. been missing the streams due to life bullshit but I'll be back -- FanonAndOn
So De La is my all time favorite and this is my favorite album of theirs. I consider myself a direct descendant of their stuff. This article is hilarious.
im saying tho. we are the alternative rap lineage and they cant be bothered to look around
📠!
Thanks for all your contributions to hip hop, Willie Evans Jr. I still go back and vibe to Introducin’. Best your way
Thank you Mike. This afternoon I'll be bumping "De La Soul is Dead" followed by "Component System with the Auto Reverse"
Touching Rap Grass might be a good name for a podcast though
They had to change their image, not only for their own personal reasons, but for business purposes, because they could never make another album like 3FHAR - because the sample laws got more complicated.
Every few days, I go to The Atlantic just to read the article titles, get mad that there are people that think The Atlantic has anything to say about anything, and then close my browser tab having clicked on nothing. I also find most retrospective album reviews pretty shallow and like more of an exercise of someone safely pontificating about their great taste. I guess at least this author has the nerve to write a genuinely stupid opinion.
Writers not steeped in hip hop should pause and think before they attempt hip hop historiography, because it usually ends up shallow and/or contrarian. I appreciate the depth of your takes and projects of researching and exploring hip hop history from a stance of the same genuine enthusiasm and curiosity you rap from.
BTW, an "urtext" is like an earliest complete publication/copy of a piece of art. It's a term in classical music that reflects musicians trying to find an original of the score of a piece, since copies get made and subtle changes get made along the way from editors who are reflecting performance practices of their day, or sometimes adding typos or interpreting ink marks that are unclear. People often go back to manuscripts of Bach's music (from 300 years ago) when they think too much stuff has been added throughout the years in an effort to find a different kind of sound. Sometimes it can be a kind of fetishism that 'if I just play from the right edition, I'll have a legitimate interpretation of the piece', but there were also performance practices in Bach's day that were just understood and not written down, so it's tough to say what the 'original way' of playing really would be, or if Bach wouldn't prefer to hear his music on modern instruments. (It's also a term in literature and for stuff like biblical scholarship, where translations can accrete all kinds of stuff over the years). Maybe a more rap-relevant question would be: If Kanye puts out like 10 janky versions of a song, with one version being released on a CD and another being released on a birth control pill case, then which version do hypebeasts decide is the 'right one'? (sorry for the lengthy digression)
A few years ago I found a political journalist using a phrase to describe other people in politics and journalism that I'm very grateful to have adopted. "Unserious". It has been an immensely useful label to explain that someone just isn't trying and isn't worth my attention, or anyone else's for that matter.
That's not to say you shouldn't be slamming this dude and explaining why he's wrong -- that's a very valuable service to many communities, and I appreciate you for it, Mike 🙏
I aaw de la soul at a music festival in the UK about two years ago and they easily drew the biggest crowd of any hip hop group ive ever seen at a uk festival - even more than wu tang and tribe in years id been to previously. Young crowd too. They absolutely still relevant and loved
Wonderful video. We need to keep it straight. They would not make a single misstep until after Prince Paul left.
Why the hell is *The Atlantic* of all publications attempting to rewrite the narrative about an all-time classic album 33 years after it came out?? Especially weird since said album only recently appeared on streaming services for the first time.
I haven't watched the video yet. Apparently the entire article is a rebuttal of a new book by Marcus J Moore? 🤔
This is why I don't post, this is why I don't write for magazines, because I don't know shit about shit and having someone eviscerate me like this would make me never leave my room again! 😬
“One more Steely Dan sample could’ve had Gangster rap on its knees” 😂😂😂😂
I'm commenting as I'm listening. That first paragraph already shows how tone deaf he is to hip- hop culture. "Dad rock" samples? That's how a person who was never invested in the culture would retroactively describe the tone of that album, but it shows a lack of understanding because "dad rock" couldn't be further from the truth. He heard Hall and Oates and Steely Dan, and labeled the entire thing "dad rock samples." I grew up listening to hip-hop and I get defensive when people come around later and try to redefine the music without having any context. I like how you put it: "touch rap grass." What bothers me is guys like this don't have a valid opinion, but the people who gave him his job give him an opinion that other people can then view as valid. I'm currently trying, attempting, to list my top 250 hip hop albums of all time and I have "....Is Dead" at 5, behind Wu-Tang, Low End Theory, Madvillain, and Illmatic. It's one of the best ever and deserves to be. It was a statement on the entire culture, not just "dad rock samples."
Would Can’t Go For That and Peg even be considered “dad rock” at the time 3 Feet came out? The whole article feels like he’s trying to contextualize for others something he wasn’t even around for.
@@SpektakOne Good point! There's less than a decade between those songs and the debut of De La Soul. 🤦
@@SpektakOne That's a good question. I don't know for sure but this like legit upsets me because I grew up with this music, and it feels like another person, who was never in the game, trying to re-contextualize it. Just no. I viewed this album as a statement on the entirety of hip-hop, as there was suddenly this spectrum of gangster rap and the conscious movement. I think Tommy Boy wanted to label them as hippies and to me, "Is Dead" was De La basically saying, we're going to be whoever we want to be, not who our label or fans want us to be.
This article was so god damn infuriating but I'm glad we got your ethering of this dude out of it
The shade is righteous 🔥🔥🔥🔥
One of the first Hip Hop albums I ever heard and a perfect midsection to one of the best opening trilogies in any discography
makes me wanna recall Frank zappa saying, “Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read”. music critics are simply pencil pushers
Pitchfork made lots of money destroying young artists’ careers for years and years
This is nuts, but also the art of headline writers and copy editors is key in creating these clickbait lines which sometimes overstate the theme of the article. And also of oldheads who remember the late 80s discourse about hip hop using sampling, also sparked by white rock crits, which reached the level of Village Voice and Spin magazine and resulted in Harry Allen being invited to do a sample on Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype".
This lore is from me, a confessed white music fan and oldhead who has been a hip hop fan from 1986 and remembers these infighting culture wars. History repeats. It's all noise, there is a great story to be told in the margins about exploitation and marketing in the role of pop music, "black/urban/"crossover" music and specifically hip-hop as it started to break. This commentary is an essential part of it and thank you SO MUCH for saying it
'is dead' was the perfect follow-up to '3 feet', imo, but someone trying to listen to it for the first time now is unlikely to notice the influential, landmark or pioneering moments. you literally had to be there and even then, you had to be 'ready' for it. to really get it. but if you were chosen, words can't even describe what it meant, or did. but, exclusivity and exceptionalism aside, i think it could still hit certain chosen ones moving forward and there's no such thing as bad publicity, even tho' people can be sheep and influence, cheap. like the reviewer's audio system must have been. or is it more like the shibboleth concept where we don't mind that he doesn't feel it or get it? wouldn't it be more disturbing if everyone 'got it' all these years later?
Well said. It's all there on the album, too. They literally say The Daisy Age is dead. Bitties in the BK Lounge has someone talking about one of the De La Soul punching someone who thought he wasn't when he was. There's also My Brother is a Basshead, describing the onset of the crack epidemic.
It's also wild to discuss De La's career without mentioning the changed legal situation around sampling and how that has affected the making and distribution of their art to this day.
TRIVIA HipHop in England broke fairly late as compared to the rest of Europe as compared to places such as Amsterdam. And it was De La Souls 3 Feet High and Rising that proved to be the album that garnered both critical and commercial success on major scale in the UK and elevated American HipHop into the nation's pop music conversation. Even up to today it continues to always make the top albums lists in English rock magazines such as NME and Melody Maker along with the likes of such classic records as the Sex Pistols and Oasis and Stone Roses debuts.
A mountain climber who plays an electric guitar...
👏
he dont know the meaning of dope when he's looking for a suit and tie rap that's cleaner than a bar of soap
@@IBMCs2009 🫡💯
going to high school from 2014-2018 I have experienced an incredible amount of horrible white boy takes whenever a new album would come out. I dont know why white people get insanely turned off when artists differ from whatever they were expecting. Its like once they discover an artist they take ownership over what they are and their place in music. shit would piss me off so much cause I would be like "nah this is like way better than the previous shit" and it would take them years to catch on if at all.
I tried touching rap-grass but there was broken glass everywhere!
“Touch rap grass” 😂😂
I didnt have a lot of exposure to hip hop when I was younger. I downloaded this album after I saw Video Dave recreating the cover in his stitches. I think its great. 'Pease Porridge' and 'Hey Love' were some of the highlights for me. I like the skits too; it adds personality to the record.
“So this is a short article…” the shade lolll
I might have to revisit this De La Soul is dead album. When I heard the album, my first thought was this album with career suicide. But I didn’t understand their battle with the industry about their image. I thought it was from the general public, mistaking them for hippies. Which I never did. I thought they look the concept and everything was fresh new take on hip-hop. It showed you didn’t have to be hard to be a rapper. You could be yourself. But I could not get into the second album at all.
this is the best work IMO! this is a masterpiece! still loved still successful. 33 years later they came out with the video for oodles of 0s. they are not soft at all. peas porridge in the pot talks about that situation. for these people that don't know de la soul in the mist of that era was a force to be reckoned with. peace.
This is a nightmare. This same argument was happening when IS DEAD first came out! And it was harrowing then, and it's annoyingly so now. There's so much...ignorance? racial stigmatizing? monolithic pandering and infantalizing? In these kinds of critiques. It's not an original position Weingarten takes, not at all; it's actually redundant. I really can't believe the same critique of this record is following them around 30+ years later, mayne. Talmout "dad rock"; those early rap samples were all music the djs and producers of the tracks heard/played in the early days of hip hop, back when looping breaks was what made the genre! None of those samples were used to placate this nerd's sensibilities, it was on some (playful) hood shit. And nobody cares what a white or white adjacent dude has to say about how 3 Black men express themselves with the styles they helped invent. So fkn ignorant.
Get ‘em Mike. Wasn’t aware of the article til this vid popped up in my feed and i clicked on it. The absolute blasphemy and ignorance that writer has. “Dad rock” lol. Let me just say this, De La Soul is Dead is my favorite album of any genre. And jesus, what a lack of appreciation for satire and social commentary. 😡😡😡 Thank you for this rebuttal.
Nice breakdown. De La and Native Tongues made it slick to be diverse in music, clothing, presentation. Especially in the age of Gangsta and political hip hop. For us the movement was fun, social, colorful and less stressed. The jazz influence made it made it chill. F' that writer.
Would love to talk to you on the show about this!
11:18 This right here is what irks me the most about modern day music and entertainment writing in general! These people get things wrong all the time and get paid and get to write for reputable publications/sites. 😾
I agree with you, however, calling the Atlantic “reputable” is giving them too much credit. Absolute trash neoliberal rag, their political takes are even worse than the music ones.
Monica Lynch is her name
Put it on vibrate.
People talking confidently, but ignorantly, based on a sliver of understanding. I see this play out all throughout society, unfortunately. Once you grock it, it's like being Roddy Piper looking through the glasses in "They Live". If people said less, listened more, and adopted more rounded perspectives, we'd all be better off in so many ways. Hell, maybe we could chart one of these so called alternative paths!
I think the article is a review of a new book by Marcus Moore "High and Rising" so it's not clear how much is based on the book and how much is based on Weingarten's opinion. De La Soul have said they are looking at legal action, apparently, because the book is not authorised.
I'd be interested in a follow up on this video.
Wow just seeing the caption has made want to go and bump this gem again 😄🔥🔥
After learning that Me Myself and I was the last song on 3 Feet I can only hear it as a prequel to DLSID. It's all there
Btw I recently became a subscriber from the Prince Paul series, some of my favorite podcasting ever
There are literally songs written about these types of reviews and here were are in 2024 still dealing with this shit.
De La Soul is Dead is my favorite De La album. I can't listen to the skits anymore, I can't believe my younger self enjoyed them so much. I had to make a playlist where I take out all of the skits and only list the songs that were on the cassette.
'There should have been more Steely Dan samples' is such a selfish consumer brain-poisoned critique. Like the type of thing you hear from someone who's black out drunk
They literally NameDrop the Arsinio event in their music, lmao, all you gotta do is listen and you can figure this shit out
1:31 you nailed it
"he'd prolly let out a lil poot..." I died.💀🌻
this reminds me of when some nytimes writer said MS LAURYN HILL'S lyric "so while you're imitating al capone, i'll be nina simone/ and defecating on your microphone" was the WORST LYRIC of her career lolllll
Along with Public Enemy, De La Soul is one of my favorite Hip-Hop acts of all time. I loved 3 Feet High And Rising as well as Buhloone Mindstate, which I thought was every bit as brilliant. I never really gave De La Soul Is Dead much of a chance when it came out. I think I'm ready to give it another chance now.
Mr. Weingarten exemplifies the Dunning-Krueger effect so well though....🤔
As much as I love 3FHandR, De La Soul is Dead is my favorite De La album. It’s a masterpiece and literally changed my life. Oodles of O’s is one of the best rap album intro songs in hip hop history.
lotta writers do love to tell on themselves in between slurping up their own farts
The article is a troll. And its clearly a successful one because look! We're all pissed!
@@scottsasso imagine being this nieve ☝️
Imagine being this nieve ☝.
@scottsasso are there Ancient Aliens on the Flat Earth too?👉🤪👈
I agree, I think its some AI concoction designed to generate some traffic or something
“the beats are sluggish” 😳 ridiculous
The beats are just so fresh on that album and while less maximalist than 3 feet i feel like less is more on some of these
im a modern rap fan (playboi carti & yeat are in my top 5) but i still listen to this album sometimes. no other rappers from the 80s pique my interest. that means something
De La Soul Is Dead is one of the bravest albums and has one of the bravest cuts ever : Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa, were Dave raps as the bad guy. How many artists are willing to deconstruct their own success? It was the 2nd best album that year behind The Low End Theory.
He missed the point of both De La albums by his fundamental misunderstanding of Dead.
De La's first 4 albums can be ranked in any order and you'd be correct.
DSLID >>> 3 Feet High....in my humble opinion
14:14 Holotype/foundational/seminal master work/"text."
wait... thats the entire article?!
Read about this in @TheAtlantic. It's a dumb take on three levels: 1) Sampling on the level that 3 Feet (and Paul's Boutique) did it was rendered unfeasible after those albums came out. Clearance lawsuits galore, lots of lost profits. No way they were repeating that mistake. 2) Prince Paul was doing other stuff (Def Jam imprint, other acts) making a simliar sounding album unlikely if not pointless. 3) A little band called Tribe Called Quest tore shit up with an evolved version of the aesthetic on People's Instinctive Travels... These guys were friends but also pushed each other, The idea that they'd come back with the same sound would have been corny AF and De La knew it. The writer is playing an interesting what if game but his conclusion is wrong. De La played it perfectly and we are still finding them seminal and interesting because of it.
I don’t like his headline on this article. I did not like the De La is dead album at all. But that’s how I felt about it. But 3 feet high and rising is in my top 3 hip hop albums of all time. It opened the world of hip hop up everyone. This writer is clueless.
you peeped the album again lately? I didn't love it when I first heard it but it spun it again a couple years ago and it was a lot better than I remembered it being
@@open_mike_eaglerelistened to the album a couple of days ago and it seems to hit harder the older I get. It's a challenging record to unpack.
No alternative?! Yeah anyone that doesn’t know of Freestyle Fellowship and it’s influence shouldn’t be given the keys to hip hop journalism or criticism. There’s documentaries and Grammys at this point. Holy crap.
The only logical explanation I have is that Weindsharten is a demon
Is it possible that he doesnt mean there has been no path for alternative hip hop? Maybe all that he is saying that De La Soul's influence on the trajectory of alternative hip hop would have been greater had they doubled down on tommy boys hippie image.
That opinion is still silly because i think de la soul is dead was plenty influential on the ethoa and trajectory of the underground more so than 3 feet high (looking at the roots, organized konfusion, company flow)
he probably needed to write more words in service of fleshing out that perspective if thats what he intended. but either way I would still disagree. it doesnt sound to me like he has any sort of handle on what the trajectory of alt hip hop has been
I don't understand, because everyone I knew saw the second album as a sequel.
If you had listened to the What had Happened Was with Prince Paul, then you would know.
4:27 Monica Lynch
3 feet high samples the Turtles, Hall and Oats, the Funky Four Plus One More, the Beatles, James Brown the Godfather, Steely Dan, Kraftwerk, Otis Redding, the Isley Brothers, the Monkees, and Fatback Band, among others. That's a lot of samples and not a lot of dad rock
The Atlantic need some new hires.
Unfortunately this is the Eminem effect. This is what happens when you let the guests run the house, his people think they run it too. This is what Benzino was trying to prevent, and it sucks because Eminem was a real talent but by using him to replace canibus and making him the best selling technical rhymer, this is what you get out of the rest of the industry. Sad.
This is a bad take also. While it's true, whitebois, especially Rock dudes, are usually ignorant af and have some of the worst takes. The only person responsible for Eminem's rapid rise was Dr. Dre. Then all these (mostly white) non Hip-hop heads boosted his sales and crown him king. There is no conspiracy. It's just Racism and capitalism playing out in Eminem's favor.
Tbf as much as I dislike Eminem's music, from what I've seen he's shown great appreciation for the culture and loves hip hop for the art and not clout like when he was supporting Tony Yayo or Boldy James after his car crash. With that said, his fans are absolutely less connected to the culture than Em is so idk if Em is to blame but he's by far the best selling hip hop artist iirc
@@babygrill01 I too give him grace for his authenticity, but once he knew they were trying to rap elvis him, he had a choice to NOT go along for the ride. It would probably have made his later career more memorable than it has been. It sounds weird saying he should've sabotaged what they were building around him, but that's what integrity is. Ali could've just served in the war, they wouldn't have put him in harms way, instead he gave up the belt and went to jail for two years and that's why he's the greatest ever hands down, black, white or otherwise.
Benzino didn’t actually care about that lol
@ of course he did! Didn’t you see him crying on drink champs? Eminem’s success led to the death of the Source magazine, his one contribution to Hip Hop.
soon as I saw his name I knew wahgwaan
Agree in full. Gotta say, in this day it's like media (social and trad) is like a bad beef tossed up by some clown who values the attention over accuracy or learning. Gotta deny them the views and bury these guys below the fold on page 12.
And I remember going to my first concert - JBs, De La & Tribe, and some dudes in the front row tried to start shit with De La until they saw all three of them put down the record crates they were bringing on stage, and start walking down. Each of their arms was as thick as most people's legs so... Suddenly people learned to the STFU.
I feel like half the problem of the poorly informed would-be critic these days is that they're missing most of the context; the music available for streaming is like maybe 25% of the larger soundscape that was on radio, and radio was different when you had more Black owned radio stations instead of Clear Channel running things. You can't look at the top 20 and know the full sound people were hearing.
Hiphop especially is always made in conversation with the musical community around it.
Of course, so is good criticism... instead of contextualess colonizer music writers.
and wow, missing the ENTIRE point of the skits (and the album in general, tbh) is fkn ccrraaazzzyy!!!!! i hate when they miss context!!
Let's celebrate and ignore that clown and play De La especially my favorite from them De La Soul Is Dead album!
Agree the article is wack but as a huge fan who grew up in their neighborhood, always felt they could've embraced the alt image a bit more to sustain their level of success from the first album, instead of trying to "kill it" right away -- ultimately they still are who they are.
Annnnnd, he's not right about giving NWA urtex status like Schoolly D wasn't on this timeline.😂
When you go online to tell these mfs shut up, tag me in it.😂😂😂I'll help.
TOUCH RAP GRASS
GET EM
Writers don’t usually make their own headlines fyi
we live in the age of information with zero information processing and literacy skills. thank you for calling out that when we say "people just say shit" we mean good, smart, otherwise intelligent people just be out here, running their mouths, can't be bothered to check things.
Listening to you just reading this while I work is pissing me off. Some people have to always have a take on a culture they don’t know anything about
I don’t know a thing about this writer in particular; but in fairness, rock critics often are just as ignorant of rock music!
This article probably from some AI that figured out De La has lots of fans and knows hate gets clicks or something. I’ll bet there’s no such person as Weingardner, the language smells of non-human
Marcy Weingarten ain’t even a guest. He’s just a home invader at this point
Where does anybody writing for the fucking Atlantic get off thumbs downing any hip-hop record?
Every Accusation=confession. I.E. this guy's critique was a mistake.
I read a lot of book coverage. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic honestly. Their book reviews are very hit and miss and I can't figure out exactly why.
A glaring MASTERWORK!!!
That writer can go-screw all day, dig?
aight. so i was as heated as you as i started. And I agree, my mans writes likes he's listened to a dozen golden era hip hop joints at most...("Dad rock samples" -- that ish was so offputting) i will say however, that, when it came out, it was a confusing message for a then highschool to college age brother who had been inspired so much from the aesthetic of 3ft. high -- At the time, it did feel like they were trying to distance themselves from the album, as they never had another one like it. In fact, looks like the author of "High and Rising" is asserting the same thing the writer of the Atlantic article did... I'd be curious to hear de la's take on it in 2024.
when I spoke to Prince Paul about it, he made it pretty clear that it wasnt the album they were distancing themselves from but the hippie image. they also cover it in the song It Aint Hip to be Labeled a Hippie
yeah i hear that. later, i did end up getting that out of it, and yeah my faux pas, you made that clear too..."it wasn't the music, it was the image"... i still miss they never returned to that quirkiness for anything else though, but then again, it's one of those things where they may could have only. just been one. paul's hand was all over their first joint though, so really a lot of it could be much of his influence vs. the entire group's...i'm thinking of something like handsome boy modeling school or prince among theives...which help (to me at least) illuminate this
i think between 3 ft, dead, and buhloone, they evolved well.