The three formed the group in high school and caught the attention of producer Prince Paul with a demo tape of the song "Plug Tunin'". Weaving clever wordplay and deft rhymes across two dozen tracks loosely organized around a game-show theme, De La Soul broke down boundaries all over the LP, moving easily from the groovy my-philosophy intro "The Magic Number" to an intelligent, caring inner-city vignette named "Ghetto Thang" to the freewheeling end-of-innocence tale "Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin's Revenge). Record sleeves were very clean on the inside and easy to take out unlike my copy of De La Soul is Dead (repress). You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Released amid the 1989 boom in gangsta rap, which gravitated towards hardcore, confrontational, violent lyrics, De La Soul's uniquely positive style made them an oddity beginning with the first single, Me, Myself and I.

All image and audio content is used by permission of the copyright holders or their agents, and/or according to fair dealing as per the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Products labelled '*item fulfilled by Exertis on behalf of hmv' will be supplied to you directly by Exertis via their approved couriers. I thought they had come to an agreement on all the samples but Cool Breeze on The Rocks is not on this album. For items that are dispatched using our standard service, we ask that you wait 14 days from the date of dispatch before reporting any items as undelivered. Seminal hip-hop group De La Soulhave gained control of their back catalogue which will finally be available on streaming from March this year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies.When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Samples that are pure genius, coupled with a rhyme style which on certain tracks, even 25 years later, I'm still finding new nuances with, make this outstanding. Time for a trip down the technicolor road of the Daisy Age with De La Soul’s magnum opus, “3 Feet High and Rising. I tend to shy away from coloured vinyl as the quality of pressings tend to vary hugely but I'm pleased that I pulled the trigger on this Rough Trade green as it sounds great. Their positivity meant many observers labeled them a 'hippie' group, based on their declaration of the 'D.