The Making of De La Soul’s “3 Feet High And Rising”
I thought I saw something like this floatin’ around the Internets earlier this year, but Rolling Stone got the brothers from Long Island to give a track by track account on the 20th Anniversary of their classic debut. Yup, you could say YN knows a thing or two about the makin’ of stories.
Acknowledge Your Own History © Jungle Brothers
Bonus: The following is a cool idea that’s never gonna happen.
To mark 3 Feet’s two-decade anniversary, De La are putting together a tour, a book and a album including remasters and remixes of the original tracks, along with some “re-interpretations”: In 1989, when the LP was released, samples were a new frontier and many on the album were used without clearances, which would prevent the tracks from being re-released. But De La has an electrifying idea about how they can release those songs.
“We’ve been in conversations with Warner Bros. to explore re-recording some of the songs with some of the people we sampled from,” says Mase, a.k.a. Vincent Mason. The discussions are still in early stages, but the trio is hoping to cut “Say No Go” with Hall and Oates and “I Know” with Steely Dan, among other tracks. “It’s real cool to know that we have lasted this long, people appreciate what we do,” adds Posdnous, a.k.a. Kelvin Mercer.