De La Soul — De La Soul is Dead

«De La Soul may not be dead, but on this album, their vital signs are shockingly low.» (David Browne)

Composed of infinite skits, twelve out of twenty-seven songs, the intro presents Jeff, a teenage guy who finds this disc in the trash, or where it should remain, and pick it, being rightly beaten up by some bullies who steal his record. Subsequent skits feature these guys just as rightly criticizing different songs of the album. This is a very clever move of the group, perhaps not too thought of by themselves, I don't know: by placing children to criticize their own tracks, they take away the work of the music critics, practically forcing them to identify themselves with the bullies themselves in case negative criticism came to the disc.

Someone, some frightened amateurs with a particularly weak mind, let themselves be fooled by this crafty and devious psychological technique, genuinely shameful for a rap group, I mean, you would expect such things from a pop moscious band/artist of the seventies or early eighties, but not from… ah, yeah, hip-hop hippies, sure. Yes, that's right, from the hippies of hip-hop, you should expect this kind of things.

The criticisms, however, fortunately, arrive. Especially from the insiders, because instead the fans continue to love these hippies and hail the work as an absolute classic despite being particularly poor from a lyrical point of view. Prince Paul, on the other hand, is a genius and should be commended, because he builds a sonic masterpiece and deserves his props, he's fantastic. From a musical point of view, the record is flawless, basically every rhythm is perfect, it creates beautiful soul and jazzy rhythms with a splendid choice of samples, even if inferior to the debut, and a commendable work.

Prince Paul saves the album with one of the best productions of the year that allows you to completely ignore that thing that is the lyrics and to focus only on the music, it's the only way to consider this sophomore jinx in full regularity, as a record classic of its genre. The album is in fact not too different from the second of A Tribe Called Quest: both groups, considered, only a few years before, the future of the genre and the pioneers of alternative rap, trying to move away from the generous definition of critics such as hippie hip-hop and fall with their respective second year albums in an attempt to make more hardcore cuts and more serious themes than those addressed in their debut albums.

As for A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul also fall into misogyny with the rape theme: "Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa" is the track number fifteen of these twenty-seven, it's right in the center of the album, and as well as in the effort of their Native Tongues friends, kills the whole project. Needless to say, Prince Paul's production is a great, heavy and skinny energetic boom bap jazzy with excellent looped piano that is also perfect for this theme, it would be enough to clean up and review the words and perform it with an energetic hardcore delivery and it would be a classic.

Instead, these guys decide that the rape theme should be approached as if it were a sunny morning picnic in a quiet park, that is, with a carefree and effortless delivery. I do not know what to say. It's evident that these guys are out of their context and don't really know what to say, what to do, how to do this type of tracks, they shouldn't address these issues to face them with a mild delivery and a light rapping that makes you regret mumble: this is a meditative narrative about a friend raped by her father disguised as Santa Claus, to then shoot him and kill him at the end, a song based on a true story, and with which they would like to kill their floral image, but instead they only sound more lame then before.

There are several tunes with humor, others fun at times, but often not, some with speeches about the death of hip-hop, the themes are a mix of light-heartedness and seriousness, there are mature and dark moments, criticisms of hip-hop culture, to house music, to the gangsta rap and pop rap sub-genres, to food, fame, radio stations, many of these critiques are present in the skits, where the group also parodies hardcore rap and there's some bizarre choices, as well with rare excellent cuts scattered here and there, but most of the record is mediocre and always remains hippie with its light-hearted bars, even if they aren't as positive and cheerful as before.

The opposite of "Millie" is "My Brother's a Basehead", another track based on a true story, this time about the brother of one of the group members who's addicted to drugs, it's a socio-conscious song over an excellent Prince Paul rhythm, brilliant light boom bap, skinny, funky, minimal, positive, calm syncopated light delivery, with extravagant hook. To note, in negative, a track in which the group not only doesn't thank that someone has the courage to send them demos considering them to have an undeserved importance, but they also insult them ("Ring Ring Ring") with a commercial delivery on a hip house / dance production (always dope), and another song-skit called "Kicked Out the House", where... there's one that simulates mental retardation, maybe? I don't know, decent rhythm, boom bap dance dope, hospital machinery looped tightly in the background, scattered shouts in the background. Tense lines in the background with shouts, while a woman says "I can't get another" looped in the background. All nonsense.

“Pass the Plugs” returns to their favorite theme. Which? The Arsenio Hall Show rightly presents them as "the hippies of hip-hop" and the hippies of hip hop perform "Me Myself and I", a song in which they declare that the group isn't the hippie of hip hop, even if it is, and hip-hop hippies don't take it well. The hippies. Hippies come back to this point, but they don't want to be labeled as a hardcore group either, so, what are they then? They repudiate the mark of hip-hop hippies and hip-hop flower children, the group changes and evolves. Not necessarily for the better, in fact, the group exaggerates, from the catastrophic title — "de la soul is dead" — to the catastrophic cover — the withered daisies in a broken flowerpot — to meaningless misogynistic lyrics; the group died, yes, killed by the public and by the critics and expectations that had been placed on them as the future of the genre and here it disappoints enormously. It remains a light album, still floral, but sad and dark, less cohesive and less intriguing than the debut, full of defects, it's not a classic: the whole project is a mockery of everyone, very long in a way that doesn't a logical sense understandable from a human point of view, with infinite skits, twenty-seven tracks and over seventy minutes.

Highlights: "Oodles of O's", "Talkin' Bout Hey Love", "Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays'", "My Brother's a Basehead".

Rating: 7.5/10

Rating without skits: 8.7/10.