If you didn’t get a chance to tune into these, take a few minutes & do so. It’ll be well-worth your time & your mind will thank you.

Again, 100% nuff respect due to DJ Sorce-1, DJ Jaycee & P for all of their work in putting these together.

From The Soul: The Music and Influence of De La (Part One)

The Smoking Section Presents From The Soul: The Music & Influence Of De La Soul

Reconstructing The De La Soul Years With Prince Paul (Part Two)

Words By DJ Sorce-1

“If you don’t put Prince Paul in the top ten producers of all time, then you are smoking a rock.” — MC Serch

Throughout his career, Prince Paul has earned himself a reputation as a fearless risk-taker. His track record of oddball projects includes everything from horror-core rap to his recently produced children’s rap record (Baby Loves Hip-Hop). In addition to his unique catalogue, Paul also has the ability to tell stories through his art without having the music suffer. His A Prince Among Thieves album is arguably Hip-Hop’s one flawless concept record.

Prince Paul’s flair for the unique can be tracked all the way back to his early work with De La Soul. Paul worked side by side with the Long Island trio for their first three albums, coming up with skits and interludes to keep a humorous aspect to the music. For your reading pleasure, here are Paul’s musings from De La Soul’s early work as he Reconstructs his De La Soul years with TSS’s DJ Sorce-1.

DJ Sorce-1: What sort of production equipment were you guys using on 3 Feet High And Rising?

Prince Paul: We were using a 24 track two inch reel. It might have actually been a 32 track board. I believe Sound Workshop was the name of the company that made it. As far as samplers, we were using the S-900, which had just come out, an SP-12, and a Casio sampler like an SK-5. We also had a Juno. I can’t remember the exact model number. That was basically it…that equipment and a bunch of records.

DJ Sorce-1: I understand that the records that you guys sampled came from a variety of sources. Dante Ross would have some records, De La would have some records and there was a big mixture of different people bringing by records. Is that accurate?

Prince Paul: Not to discredit Dante, but I don’t think we used any of Dante’s records for that album (Laughs). But yeah, it was a combination of me, Pos, Dave and Mase. We combined our collections. We more or less gathered what our families listened to and had collected over the years. Pos had a deep collection. His dad had some really obscure records, which helped us out a lot. I’d been collecting forever and I always had weird records. Everybody came to the table with their own little thing. It was almost like we were trying to outdo each other, like ‘Oh, look what I got!” That’s why the album sounds so layered out. We just kept adding stuff to it.

DJ Sorce-1: Did you teach everyone else the technical aspects of production or did the rest of De La bring their own knowledge to the table?

Prince Paul: In those days, especially with 3 Feet…, it was primarily me because I was already working with Stet. I was a little familiar with the studio, but I wasn’t that good. Luckily I had really good engineers with me or what I deemed to be good engineers at the time. I fronted like I knew everything just to make the De La guys comfortable. I’d say, “Yeah, let’s gate that and compress this.” Meanwhile, I didn’t know what half the things did. But I knew enough about what the different equipment did and its capabilities to get by. That helped. That opened them up to being more imaginative with how to chop things up, sample, and pitch things.

DJ Sorce-1: Do you think that’s part of the reason why the album came out the way it did? Since you guys weren’t seasoned veterans with production, it seems like there was a certain innocence and experimental vibe to the album.

Prince Paul: Yeah, without a doubt man. There are tons of mistakes on that album. I’ll listen to it and go, “Oops. That was a mistake, there’s a mistake, that’s a mistake.” There’s a part of “Me, Myself And I” where the music drops out; that was a mistake. Me and Pos used to mix everything by hand. We didn’t have automation. Everything was kind of on the fly as the song went along. There was a part where one of us was supposed to leave the beat in, and we forgot. We just looked at each other, threw it back in on time and said, “Eh, that’s good enough.” (Laughs)

We could have easily edited the pieces together on tape, but we liked to do everything from beginning to end, manually. We didn’t feel like doing it all over so we were like, “Nobody will know the difference. They don’t know how it’s supposed to go.” That’s what that whole album is. You can hear things like people talking in the background and the doors opening to the booth. It was horrible. But it made it work.

DJ Sorce-1: To be honest with you, since I’m a young guy, I didn’t start listening to the album until almost a decade after its release when I was in middle school. I don’t think there has ever been an album that has come close to 3 Feet… in terms of how imaginative it is.

Prince Paul: Wow, thanks. I appreciate that. If you had listened to it in the era it came out in, it probably would have freaked you out even more. When that album came out we treaded on territory that nobody was willing to go. I just remember people scratching their heads. Either you really liked it or you hated it. It was an extreme record and it was radical in its time. But I’m glad you picked it up and liked it. I guess that it shows it has a little bit of staying power.

DJ Sorce-1: One of my favorite tracks on the album is “Eye Know.” I love the Steely Dan sample. Could you talk a little bit about who came up with the idea to sample “Peg” and how you came up with the songs concept?

Prince Paul: I have to give Pos a lot of credit for that one. He’s the one who more or less conceptualized it. He said, “Hey, these are the songs I want to use.” For me, particularly on that song, I had to say, “Ok. Let me make it work. This is how we do it.” That was the working relationship with me and De La in those days. Wherever their imagination went and whatever songs they wanted to use, it was up to me to figure out how to sample it and make it into a song.

We were ¾ of the way into the album and Pos had came in and initially laid down the beat for “Eye Know.” I was impressed because that was a result of the time spent showing them the ropes with production. I literally sat there and showed them how to produce. As opposed to just doing it for them, I was trying to teach them. My intention was to just work with them on that one album and then have them do the rest of their albums themselves. When I came in the studio, Pos had laid down the basic format of the song. I was like impressed. And then it was just a matter of sprinkling whatever else on to make it right. But yeah, Pos should definitely take the credit for putting that song together.

DJ Sorce-1: You say that you were setting them up to go on alone after 3 Feet…, yet you ended up staying on for their next two albums. Was that a surprise?

Prince Paul: For me it was flattering. When De La Soul Is Dead started up, they hit me up and said, “We know you said you weren’t going to do the next album but we’d like for you to work with us on the next one. You’re part of the group and part of the family.” That was nice. That’s why the second and third album came about the way they did.

I had told them early on in our relationship, “My whole thing is to do this one album and then have you guys go do your own thing.” When I was in Stetsasonic, I always felt like I had a limited say in things. I thought I had some really good ideas, but you can only get so many of your own ideas across when you have such a big group. I always felt stifled.

That’s more or less the reason that De La Soul came about. I needed a creative outlet and they came at the right place and the right time. I used them as my creative outlet. But I didn’t want them to feel like I did in Stet. My whole intention was to do the one album, show them how to do things in the studio, and then have them do their second and third album, if they were going to have one. We didn’t know back then.

DJ Sorce-1: So they only had a one album deal?

Prince Paul: Back then labels always tried to lock you in for ten albums or something insane. They’d give you a contract and say, “Here’s a ten album deal that expires in 2000-something.” You’d be like “Whoa, that’s crazy,” but you didn’t know any better so you’d sign it anyway. That was standard back then, to sign your life away. Read the rest of this entry »

Artwork By P.

We alluded to this in the first part yesterday. It seemed only right that we bring in an audio interlude between the two interviews, something to reacquaint you with the albums we’re discussing & give you background music to listen to while reading tomorrow’s piece with Prince Paul. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a certified music junkie. I own hundreds of CD’s, mixtapes and cassettes. I lost count of my record collection years ago. I’ve been to many a live show and I’ve rocked for big crowds as a party DJ. Throughout the countless hours I’ve spent listening to music over the years, no group has had more of an influence on me than De La Soul. I can say with a straight face that their music has changed my life.

The more I’ve talked about De La Soul with people in the music scene, the more I’ve become aware of how many different lives they’ve touched. I decided one day that I wanted to write an article that captured the significance of their music. I asked my boy Sloppy White, a Chicago-based rare rap record aficionado, to share some of his thoughts on De La to help kick start some brainstorming. He finished his email to me by saying “To me, 3 Feet High and Rising epitomizes what a Hip-Hop album can be: funny, creative, funky, political, dirty and way out there. The only rules are the ones you put on yourself.” The last two lines of his email stuck with me. “When it came to following rules, De La Soul usually said “Fuck that.” They rarely went with the hottest gimmicks, guest MC’s and producers. They did what worked for them.”

De La stuck to their guns and did what they did best. Instead of following trends, they set them, or just ignored them completely. They made music from the soul. And they continued to challenge us as listeners as much as they challenged themselves as musicians.

Fortunately for fans like me, De La has not been resting on their past success. With the 20th anniversary of their debut album 3 Feet High and Rising approaching, there is talk of a tour where the group will perform the album from beginning to end. They are also working on a project with sneaker giant Nike and performing at this years Rock the Bells tour. Most recently, it was announced that the group has been selected to be one of this year’s VH1′s Hip-Honors recipients.

With so many projects on the horizon & well-deserved accolades on the way, TSS decided to take our readers on a musical trip down memory lane. Here is a look back at their first four albums through the eyes of those who were inspired by their work.

Jaycee, member of The Aphiliates, Ludacris’ Tour DJ, Mixtape DJ, on 3 Feet High and Rising:

The first time I heard De La Soul was back in ’88. I was listening to the radio and “Plug Tunin”’ came on. They were playing it on this mix show that used to come on every Friday night on V103 called “The Fresh Party.” I can’t even tell you how wack I thought that name was. (Laughs) This Spanish lady named Wanda Ramos was the host of the show. When I first heard “Plug Tunin”’ I thought it was dope but I didn’t know who it was.

At the time I had this friend named Boobie from my neighborhood who had turntables before I did. A lot of times I would practice at his house. He was a real spoiled kid. He was the youngest and his mom would literally give him anything he wanted. If he said he wanted a Technics 1200 turntable she would work extra hours so he could get one. I can’t even begin to tell you how spoiled this motherfucker was.

On the weekends we’d get on the bus and go all over the city copping records from different spots. We’d go to Lenox Square, Greenbriar and a bunch of other malls. We’d start early and try to hit as many malls as we could. We took the bus and we’d haul records around with us all day.

As upcoming DJ’s we had this thing with labels. If you saw an album released on a label with a track record of releasing dope shit, you’d pick up the record based on the other stuff the label has put out. We picked up doubles of “Plug Tunin” without listening to it because it said “Produced by Prince Paul” on the sticker and it was on Tommy Boy, which was home to Stetsasonic and Fresh Gordon. We brought it back to the crib and listened to it I was like, “Oh shit, that’s the record I heard on ‘The Fresh Party.’”

When the “Potholes In My Lawn” single came out, I thought the cover was kind of weird. It had a hot pink color and these three goofy looking dudes on it with flowers and African medallions and shit. There was no visual for “Plug Tunin,” so we didn’t know what these dudes looked like until we saw the cover for “Potholes.” I remember thinking, “They look kind of weird, but fuck it. I trust them because ‘Plug Tunin’ was dope.” Read the rest of this entry »