De La Soul

De La Soul are a revolutionary force in hip-hop. Upon its arrival in 1989, their debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, sounded like nothing else, with a colorful, almost collaged production aesthetic and the rappers' rhyme styles that were equal parts clever and goofily humorous. At the time, this made De La Soul a gentler, more inventive one-of-a-kind presence in a rap landscape largely defined by aggression and righteous anger. Inventive and eclectic, De La Soul incorporated not only funk and soul, but also pop, jazz, reggae, and psychedelia samples into their strange and all...