[music]

David Furst: This is All Of It. I'm David Furst live from the WNYC studios in Soho, filling in for Alison Stewart. We have a great show today. Later on, we're going to hear about the Broadway play Once Upon a Mattress, which is ending its run on November 30th. Ana Gasteyer plays the role of the scheming queen. We'll hear her talk about the show. We continue our looks at documentaries featured at this year's DOC NYC Festival. Today, a look at Left Behind, which follows children with dyslexia as they and their parents and teachers navigate the New York City public school system, plus music from Igmar Thomas, the trumpeter, composer and bandleader. He has lent his ear and his talent to music from artists like LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes, Nas, Lauryn Hill, and now his own ensemble called the Revive Big Band is out with their debut album, Like a Tree It Grows. Igmar Thomas will be with us later for an All Of It listening party, so some jazz hip hop fusion to end the show, but let's get things started with a deep dive into another artist who blended jazz and a lot of things with hip hop. It's a new book about Long Island's De La Soul.

[music]

The journalist Marcus J. Moore's preview book detailed the rise of Kendrick Lamar, an emcee celebrated for his unique lyricism and music drawing from jazz and funk. In Moore's new book, which is out today, he writes about a group that paved the way for that radical genre fusing within hip hop, the trio De La Soul.

[music- De La Soul: The Magic Number]

It's almost impossible not to smile. Everyone in the control room is singing along. That's The Magic Number from De La Soul's debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, released in 1989. The album was a major hit when it was released, embraced by both the hip hop community and the broader mainstream in a way that was somewhat rare for rap at the time. It currently sits at 105 on Rolling Stone's Greatest Albums of All Time list. In High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul, more traces the group's origins and subsequent transformation as well as the pitfalls along the way, including decades long legal battles over sampling rights. Joining us here in the studio to talk about De La Soul and the new book is Marcus J. Moore. Welcome to All Of It.

Marcus J. Moore: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

David: Listeners, if you'd like to join this discussion, let us know. Do you have a favorite De La Soul track, a favorite album? Any memories of seeing them live? Tell us what their music means to you. You can call or text us at 212-433-9692, that's 212-433-WNYC. Marcus, let's start if you don't mind, at the very end, with the book's epilogue in which you write, "I still struggle with my place in the world because I don't fit into most boxes. I often feel like a loner in this clicked up industry." Can you take us back to 1989. How did the music of De La Soul resonate with you and that sense of feeling like a loner?

Marcus: In 1989, when De La Soul first came out, I remember I was eight years old and the Potholes in My Lawn video comes on. It was unlike anything I had ever heard.

David: Eight years old.

Marcus: I was eight years old. I got started early. I was into music. I was a full on music nerd from five years old on.

David: Wow.

Marcus: If you think back to the hip hop at the time, you had you had people like LL Cool J, you had Rakim, you had Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, et cetera. As much as I liked their music, I couldn't quite identify with it. I didn't see myself in that music. I could enjoy it, but it wasn't me. Whereas with De La Soul, when they came out, they looked like my older cousins, they dressed like my older cousins. The music was just so weird. It was hip hop, but maybe it was a little bit of jazz in there. I got some punk sensibility with the fashion, things like that.

That's what I mean when I say that De La Soul more so represented people like me, where you may be cool with a whole bunch of people, but you're not in one click in particular. That's what I mean when I say that. They were loners, they felt a little bit isolated simply because they made left of center art and they also lived in Amityville. They got a lot of love from people in the industry and they did it just by being themselves.

David: Some extraordinary success right out of the gates.

Marcus: Absolutely. Extraordinary between the 3 Feet High and Rising album, Me Myself and I as a single, Plug Tunin' as a single, the aforementioned Potholes in My Lawn.

David: Your epilogue is written as a letter to Dave, the De La Soul member who died last February. You also address your mother in the letter, who passed away six months later. Why did it make sense to you to write to both of them?

Marcus: Whenever Dave passed from De La Soul, it hit me in a really hard way. Harder than I imagined it was going to. Almost felt like my older brother had passed away. While I'm finishing the book, I had to rush back to the DC area, I'm originally from Prince George's County, Maryland. I had to rush back and essentially watch my mother transition. I was there for a month. Nothing prepares you for, one day you're the child, then the next day you're essentially your mom's parent. Then she transitioned.

That transformed me in a way that I'm still grappling with because I actually walked into the room as she was passing away, when she took her last breath. I felt like I needed to pay homage to both of them and also my Aunt Claudette, who passed away a week before my mom did. I felt like the epilogue was this place where I had to wrestle with a lot of grief. It's something that we all wrestle with, but to have that much loss in a short period of time is a very profound thing.

David: We just talked a little bit about Dave. Also, we have to mention Maseo and Posdnuos rounding out the trio. What did each of these artists bring to the group that was unique?

Marcus: With Posdnuos, I feel like he was the lyrical center, I would say, of De La Soul. Right or wrong, people see him as the dominant lyricist. I never agreed with that. I thought they were both equally great. Pos is more of the lyrical dominant one. Maseo essentially, he grounded the group, I think because he was a DJ. He took a little boxing back in the day. He was DJing in Brooklyn, in Bushwick. He was the guy who was going to bring a street sensibility to De La Soul to the other guys. That doesn't mean that the other guys were pushovers, by no means, but Maseo was the guy that was going to make sure that nothing crazy was going to go on with the group. He indirectly, and they all, more so directly pushed against that notion that they were solved.

David: We are speaking with Marcus J. Moore. His brand new book is called High and Rising, the De La Soul book. It is out today. You mentioned that they are from Amityville. We're starting to get some calls right now. Let me mention the number again. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We have Isaac from Amityville on Long island calling us right now. Welcome to All Of It.

Isaac: Thank you so much. It's ironic that I live in the west coast. I just happened to come home and right now I'm on Trugoy's old street. I just passed his house, which is weird. I'm getting chills in my body right now.

Marcus: Oh, right on.

Isaac: I don't know if the spirit of Dave is speaking to me right now or what, but I just passed his house. I'm on his street right now. Anyway, I'm from Amityville. We grew up together. My older brother, Perry and Dave was real tight. He had a whole crew. Noren, [unintelligible 00:09:15] to Noren and Dwayne McCullough and Dwayne Barrett. That was Dave's crew and my brother was part of his crew. I was a little bit younger. Him and his brother Mike, I don't know if you know, there are two [unintelligible 00:09:27] brother Mike was there, their road manager as well. I'm actually passing his house right now as we speak, which is really weird. I don't know if that was meant to be at that, the call just come in at the right time and the buses came on. I'm just actually driving.

David: Oh man. Isaac, thank you so much for joining us and sharing that moment.

Marcus: No, that's great, man. Thank you, Isaac. Appreciate you.

David: Let's also hear from Austin in Westchester. Thanks for joining us today. You wanted to talk about De La Soul?

Austin: Yes, sir. Just actually pre ordered the book. It's actually at my apartment now. I'm at work. I can't wait to crack open and read it. Just an all around great group of people and most of all-- I listen to a lot of just the native tongue groups and there's just something about De La Soul. The way they had the cuts and everything and how deep they went to the cuts and how far back into the music they went into to add into their beats. It's just fantastic. The song I know is a song I actually listened to at least once a day, Just a fantastic song.

David: That's a great song. Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about what he just mentioned there? The Native Tongue group.

Marcus: Oh, yes. The Native Tongues was a collective of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, Moni Love, that was the core group. They were essentially, I guess, for the lack of a better term, an alternative rap collective. In the spirit of the Bohemian age of the '60s and '70s.

David: Thank you so much for that call. Before we get any further, I want to mention the fourth unofficial member of the group. Back in those early days, their producer, Prince Paul, he was a couple years older than the trio. What did he represent to that?

Marcus: Prince Paul represented wisdom and knowledge for De La Soul because Prince Paul was also a local legend in Amityville. He was a great DJ, great producer, but at the time, he was part of this other Brooklyn collective called Stetsasonic. He was the younger guy in Stetsasonic. By his own admission, they didn't necessarily listen to all of his recommendations all the time. Whereas with De La Soul, he was more the seasoned vet. He could take their ideas and clean them up a little bit. He wouldn't say no to a lot of things. He allowed De La to experiment. Obviously in the end they would edit down stuff that didn't work, but he was pretty much their spiritual center, letting them know that it's okay to just go do all the crazy music that's been in their head the whole time.

David: What an incredible thing to be with someone who doesn't say no all the time.

Marcus: Exactly.

David: Let's hear some music. I want to play the group's debut single, Plug Tunin' produced by Prince Paul. Here's Plug Tunin'

[music-De La Soul: Plug Tunin']

A little bigot of Plug Tunin' the album version there. Immediately we're thrown into this world where no one's holding our hand, we have to catch up with what's going on here. There's all these characters being referenced Plug one, Plug two.

Marcus: That's the thing. It's like they're letting you know it's a mission statement. They're letting you know who they are. Also that's what I love about De La is the fact that they're going to talk how they're going to talk. They're going to rap how they're going to rap. It's on you to figure it out. I think that's great.

David: Can you break down the song a little bit more? What are we hearing in the instrumentation there and in the lyrics? What really stands out for you?

Marcus: When I listen to that song, it reminds me of old school 60s psychedelic rock in a way with the chimes and just the odd time signature. I don't know if people remember the band Rotary Connection before. Before Minnie Riperton went solo, she was in an, I guess, alternative soul band called Rotary Connection. When I listen to that song, it reminds me of something that can be on that, or it reminds me of like a, if Charles Stepney, the composer Charles Stepney did hip hop and he composed hip hop, it sounds like it can be that. It's definitely one of those-- Plug Tunin' is a straight ahead cut, but it definitely has a lot of weird twists and turns that make it seem like it can register as something psychedelic.

David: We're also taking your calls. We're here with Marcus J. Moore. His new book is High and Rising, the De La Soul Book. Let's hear from Stacy in Brooklyn. Thanks for joining us today.

Stacy: Oh, hi. How you doing? This makes me really happy. I literally every single day workout to De La Soul or Jungle Brothers radio on Spotify. I try to tell my kids that I was cool at one time because the hip hop they listen to now, I don't even know, it sounds all the same to me. I went to NYU back in the late '80s and in the early '90s, and I used to go to the underground hip hop clubs where they Had Africa Bambaataa and Red Alert and they played all that. We used to go see Leaders of the New School in person and Tribe Called Quest, and this is what we listened to. This is what makes me happy, this is what I listen to. Again, I don't understand what's going on today with the hip hop.

David: Thank you so much for sharing that memory. Marcus, can you talk about that scene?

Marcus: I think what Stacy was talking about is very accurate. The fact that back then between De La Soul, between Leaders of the New School, et cetera, you had variation. You had a lot of variation in the music. That scene, obviously she would know better than me, but I referenced it in the book. It's like it was the underground downtown scene to an extent where a lot of people would gather in the lower Manhattan, lower east side, et cetera, and do music of all sorts, honestly. It was pretty much hip hop, but it wasn't one kind of hip hop, I think, is what she was talking about.

David: If you'd like to join the conversation, you can give us a call. 212-433-9692, that's 212-433-WNYC. We will have more in just a minute with Marcus J. Moore, journalist and author of the new book High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul. Stick around. This is All Of It.

[music]

This is All Of It here on WNYC. We're speaking with Marcus J. Moore, author of the new book High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul. Let's hear some more music. You write in the book that the De La Soul song, Buddy, would define the collective known as the Native Tongues. Let's hear a little bit of that song. This is Buddy.

[music-De La Soul: Buddy]

I hate to even start talking on top of this, but we mentioned this a little bit earlier in the show, but De La Soul, they were part of this hip hop collective, the Native Tongues, which included them, the Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah and others. How do we gain a better understanding of De La Soul when we look at this wider mix of artists and the other groups that they collaborated with?

Marcus: De La Soul, they were pretty much part of this larger ecosystem and they represented one part of that ecosystem. When you think of the Native Tongues, I also have to fast forward to present day. Just for context, when you're thinking about the Native Tongues, also think about groups like the Roots, think about Common, think about Yasiin Bey, Black Star as a collective, common, et cetera. People like that because they also represented that left of center "alternative hip hop." De La Soul, I would venture to say that at that time, they were probably the most famous of that collective because of the single Me Myself and I, because of 3 Feet High and Rising as an album.

Now I can't talk about De La Soul without giving proper credit, to the Jungle Brothers for actually being the foundation and the first group to set off what De La Soul would become and then what A Tribe Called Quest would become. To answer your question, you can look at De La Soul within itself, but I also feel like they're part of a larger conversation about jazz meets hip hop, punk meets hip hop, rock meets hip hop. You have all of that happening pretty much in concert together within the Native Tongues collective.

David: Let's not ignore the question of fashion. We're taking your calls right now. Let's hear from Wes in Brooklyn. Welcome to All Of It. Wes, are you there? Oh, sorry, Wes. Hello. Welcome to All Of It. You had a question about fashion?

Wes: Yes, I did. At first I wanted to congratulate Marcus on a great book. I got my copy. You were talking just about the expression of Blackness and particularly Black men being different. I wonder if you had any thoughts on how many people grew locks because of Dave or wore triple five soul because of the Break of Dawn video. What was De La's impact on fashion and aesthetics?

Marcus: Thank you, Wes. Man, that's a great question. I feel like I can start that answer by at least talking about myself first. I knew that I wasn't getting crazy haircuts until I saw the Me Myself and I video. My cousin Eric just happened to be a barber who cut my hair into a high top fade and then had like three parts on the side and a part on one side of my head. It was looking crazy. I feel like ultimately De La Soul and that collective in general, quite honestly, they just dared to be different. I feel like you don't get the Black bohemian fashion that is popular now before.

You don't get that without De La Soul, because at least to my memory, them and the Jungle Brothers were the first ones to do that. Now, obviously, my memory may be failing me right now, but I feel like De La was the most famous example of that and the fact that they, for the lack of a better term, they just let us know that we could be different, we could come as we were and they just let us know that quite frankly, we can throw anything on and just make it look hit. We don't always have to have the track suit on with the gold chain and the kango.

David: Wes, thank you so much for joining the conversation today. A lot of people sending in texts as well. One right here, Marcus says, someone says, "I had a CD player in my car for almost 20 years. 3 Feet High and Rising was always in my car. It was my happy place music. I sold my car over the summer and remembered to take the CD out before it left my garage. One of my all time favorites.

Marcus: That's a great album. That's a great cd. I'm glad that they remembered it before it got sold. That's important.

David: Can you talk about the group's struggles with their record label, their infamous legal issues, oversampling, all of this work together to conspire to keep the group's music in limbo and not officially available for streaming for many years.

Marcus: It's a long history, but I guess what it boiled down to was sampling. What it boiled down to was there was one sample in particular on 3 Feet High and Rising that sampled the old rock group, The Turtles. If you listen to Tommy Boy Records, they say that De La Soul didn't let them know the sample was on there. If you listen to De La Soul, they will tell you that, "No, we filled out the sample clearance forms and we put that sample on there and it was on Tommy to clear it and they didn't clear it."

Quite early on, from 1989, it created this culture of mistrust between Tommy Boy and De La. What you would start finding around say the mid-90s, De La Soul would start dissing Tommy Boy Records openly on their music. They would take pot shots all the time. Obviously if you're a record label, you're feeling away about that. It was just this cold war that went on until about 2019, until they finally decided to part ways.

David: That's a long time. The end result of all that is that their music has not been officially available to stream for all this time. If you're approaching the music of De La Soul now without any of the context of being in the moment like you were in 1989, and what they meant back then for listeners who maybe didn't feel included in the world of coolness, didn't fit into most boxes, how does the music and the art hold up?

Marcus: That's a fair question. I got to be honest. I feel like the music definitely holds up because you hear the joy in it, you hear what they're talking about, you hear the social commentary. I can't sit here and say that with 2024 ears-- Our ears are less patient. Listening to an album like 3 Feet High and Rising can feel like work because it's a long record with a lot of twists and turns on it. Same thing with De La Soul Is Dead. These are great--

David: That's their second album.

Marcus: Their second album. These are great records. When you're used to listening to albums now that, quite frankly, are just a bunch of singles thrown together and called albums, listening to something like 3 Feet high and Rising, listening to an album like De La Soul Is Dead could be a little hard for today's listener.

David: If you let yourself get immersed in that world, it's an entirely different experience.

Marcus: Oh, 1,000%

David: That's an album.

Marcus: It's an album. What I would tell people is it's better to consume these records on vinyl, because with vinyl, you have to engage with it as a piece of art because you have to drop the needle, you have to sit down, you have to get up and flip it. For whatever reason, at least for me, records sound better on vinyl because you're getting different nodes, you're getting different sounds coming out of the speakers, and quite frankly, you're a captive audience.

David: Nice way of putting it. We have a lot of calls coming through. Let's at least try to take one more right now. Let's hear from Rebecca in Harlem. Welcome to All Of It.

Rebecca: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy for this segment. I used to love De La Soul. I was a sophomore in high school when De La Soul dropped 3 Feet High and Rising drop. We were house heads south side of Chicago. We were into house music, but we loved hip hop. We loved Native Tongues, Jungle Brothers, Tribe Called Quest. When De La Salle came out, it was this new type of joy, Black medallions, no gold. We didn't wear gold. We started accentuating our notes and stuff with daisies, me and my friends. It was just a nice meld of hip hop and house music, and it was perfect. We had our space already, but De La Soul just brought it together. It was such joyful music. It was just great. I'm glad to be a teenager at that time. Thank you for this book. I look forward to the book too.

David: Thank you so much for your comments.

Marcus: Thank you. I really appreciate your time.

David: Were they able to hold onto that joy over the course of their career as they dealt with all of these record industry struggles and all of that?

Marcus: It's interesting with De La. They still emitted joy as people. Everybody swears by De La, that they're great people, Pos, Maseo and Dave, when he was still alive, great salt of the earth brothers. You could definitely tell as the music transitioned and as it went along that there was definitely a dark cloud over some of it. I think about Stakes is High in particular, where it was a great record, there was a lot of joy on it. At the same time, you could tell they were getting tired of the industry around the music.

David: That fourth album, Stakes is High, has a song on it called Sunshine. It features lyrics in it that you wrote in the book, might be the group's mission statement. How does that song capture the mission of De La Soul?

Marcus: If we're talking about the same line, we're talking about the perpetuated ease that they're talking about. I feel like that's what De La Soul was and what they still are. For the lack of a better term, they're just easy. You know what I mean? That doesn't mean that they're doing simple music or they're doing music that's easy to comprehend, but they let you know that it was okay to smile, it was okay to hug somebody, it was okay for Black men to tell other Black men that they love them. It's okay to not have a scowl on your face all the time. It's okay to be happy and in a good mood. That's what I think, ultimately, the perpetuated ease of De La Soul stood for.

David: Let's finish with that song, Sunshine from De La Soul. Marcus J. Moore, I have like 50 more questions I want to ask you. Thank you so much for joining us today. High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul, is out today. Marcus J. Moore, thanks for speaking with us.

Marcus: Thank you. I appreciate you.

[music- De La Soul: Sunshine]

David: Coming up, about 20% of the population has dyslexia, but many kids in public school here in New York City are struggling to get the help they need to learn to read and write. We speak with the director of the new documentary, Left Behind, about parents advocating for their kids with dyslexia. We take your calls, that's next [unintelligible 00:29:57] on my seat.