July 4 - July 11, 1 9 9 6

Missing persons

Whatever happened to the original De La Soul?

by Richard C. Walls

So what's the deal with De La Soul? Listening to their latest, Stakes Is High (Tommy Boy), I was struck by how far the former champions of individualism amid the conformist, macho hip-hop culture have backpedaled. In the eight years since their 1988 debut, 3 Feet High and Rising, they've come to sound like the survivors of a lost cause -- determined but more than a little sour. Not that the album isn't kinda fun to listen to; the music is their most straight-ahead yet, with the old distancing devices of rapid change-ups and surreal imported sounds (like the famous French instructional tapes) kept to a minimum. But as to lyrics it's a little slim -- verbose as hell, and temporarily diverting, but at the end of the day little has been said. With their newly clarified beats, it's an orgy of empty calories.

Not that they don't have at least one clear point in mind. It's not to be found in the album's title, which serves as a lyric leitmotif and double-duty message -- both a snippet of social commentary and a rather concise career status report. Concerning the latter, stakes are high because De La Soul's stock has been falling ever since 3 Feet went gold. Each of the two follow-ups sold less than its predecessor, and in a recent Source article it was mentioned that Tommy Boy was initially reluctant to go for number four at all.

Conventional wisdom has it that when De La Soul came out of their Long Island corner, their flaky, smart collage style and defiantly counter-B-Boy image (the whole dynamic was acted out in their video "Me Myself & I"; they were expecting some grief for being different but didn't give a shit) hit an original note that spawned a kinder, slyer rap genre (apex: PM Dawn). For which they got their asses kicked, or at least their faces booed a few times, as well as having to suffer the shame of being labeled hippies (translation: faggots). So they came back with '91's De La Soul Is Dead (translation: image-adjustment time).

All true, but from here conventional wisdom starts to get it wrong. Dead became known as the dark denial of their intentions, but in fact it's goofier than their debut. Even a stab at seriousness gets the whimsical title "Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa." The real formalist revamping came with the third album, '93's Buhloone Mindstate, which dropped the clutter along with a big chunk of their identity but kept the ingenious beats as well as their constant theme that there's more to life than posing as (or in fact being) a gangsta. It also did about a third of what their debut did, biz-wise.

So now the teenage trio disguised as Posdnuos (Kelvin Mercer), Trugoy the Dove (David Jolicoeur), and Maseo (Vincent Mason) are adult parents who have tasted worldly success as well as sophomore (and junior) slumps. And they're walking a tightrope, sensitive to having street cred while maintaining some singularity, aware of the need to simplify their earlier cut-and-paste style while uncomfortable that any change might be perceived as unorganic.

It's a tricky stance and they're not on top of it. During a recent BET Rap City interview, the rationalizations and contradictions were making me dizzy. The weirdest assertion was that their lyrics are now more direct, less metaphoric. And though there are a good half-dozen or so one- and two-liners here, that's out of reams of personal as opposed to communal slang and refs, splintered images, and cloudy biographical allusions. Which is fine, but not what's being advertised. Plus, though they keep bearing down on the big-dick, big-gun school of life skills, they've yet to come up with any alternative aside from the watery idea that it's possible to have fun and not die from it.

So for much of Stakes the message seems whisper-thin, something like "We're still here." There are some more impressive passages, like Pos's totally metaphoric sex scene on "Betta Listen" and his fessin' up to being just another faulty guy on "Pony Ride." Then there's the title cut with Dove's 10 lines of pure disgust with the whole current bad-ass rap pose ("Sick of slang/Sick of half-ass award shows, sick of name brand clothes. . . sick of swole head rappers with their sickening raps/Clappers and gats making the whole sick world collapse"). But those bracing moments come in a sea of hanging out, casting a jaundiced eye, and trying to project being bad as in good. Not that one would expect them to remain the playful scamps of yore. It's not their fault that they went and grew up and became a little boring. It's a natural thing.