I miss New York. It’s a place where cultures clash so naturally; just hop on the subway, shun. You’re kinda forced to figure out who you are and how you wanna rep with so many people competing for attention; but that’s the beauty of it, ‘cause it’s better to struggle working out your own plan than to struggle working out someone else’s. You’re free to express yourself if you muster enough courage; it’s easier when you can walk around the city and see others livin’ life to the fullest, taking even fuller creative license. An open mind is a prerequisite for NY; you may not dig what some fools are into, but you gotta respect that they’re doing their own thing.

De La Soul aka Trugoy, Posdnuos and Maceo, and super producer Prince Paul did their own thing 20 years ago in NY when they dropped 3 Feet High and Rising, the hip hop trio’s critically acclaimed first record. I can go on and say it’s a landmark in sampling, but y’all know that. The boys didn’t craft an album as much as provide a soundtrack for an entire culture; a black bohemian rhapsody where Bill Cosby, Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Johnny Cash, Funkadelic, Kraftwerk, Hall & Oates, Sly & The Family Stone, Steely Dan, Barry White, Steve Miller Band, Bo Diddley, the Turtles, Billy Joel, Richard Pryor, the Monkees, Michael Jackson, Otis Redding, Liberace and more were all invited to the party...and stayed til the end. My musical mind was blown, listening to the cassette all day in my Walkman while working at the print department at Howard University in DC. It’s like watching the funniest sitcom on TV with your ears...if Norman Lear, Andy Warhol and George Clinton ever owned a record store together, it’d sound something like 3 Feet. I still find myself crackin‘ up twenty years later with my headphones on...getting cross stares from the tight-ass uninitiated. Y’all don’t know what you’re missin’!!!

Listen to this special installment of propsRadio paying homage to an album that was pivotal not only in my musical life but other cool motherf*ckers too. Eight of the umpteen tracks originally sampled and freaked by Prince Paul all cut and pasted together in the order they appear on the LP. Whether you old school or new school, you gonna get your schoolhouse rocked.

P.S. Special thanks to Miss Vaughn Veltri for her lil bitty voice...you’re three feet high and rising!!!

3 Feet High and Rising

De La Soul

Prince Paul