Fumbling around Google the other night while pretending to do some “research,” I came across this amazing piece of hip-hop history via YouTube. It’s a video press kit (about seven minutes in length) for De La Soul’s seminal debut 3 Feet High and Rising.
It’s a cheesy yet pretty inventive (for the time) way to introduce the group and the record. It starts simple enough, with the guys introducing themselves and giving the explanation for their names (“Trugoy is yogurt backwards … yogurt, I enjoy to eat yogurt. I mean, I eat it a lot”).
The main theme of the clip, though, seems to center on the group almost defending the album, which probably earned as much abuse as praise for its out-there mentality of peace, love and medallions. De La takes umbrage with being labeled “hippies,” a topic that becomes the driving inspiration behind 3 Feet High’s follow-up, De La Soul is Dead.
Regardless, Posdnuos, Trugoy and Mase break it down in the clip. Check for great guest spots near the end.
oh yeah! thanks for unearthing and sharing this. it’s amazing just how fresh and inventive “Jenifa Taught Me” and he rest of 3 Feet High sounds 18 years on. Especially love the sampling discussion (this was prob shot b/f the Turtles lawsuit). And damn, Prince Paul looks young, espec. w/out the Chest Rockwell moustache.
There was a similar “we are not hippies” discussion in the De La segment of Robert Palmer’s Rock ‘n’ Roll documentary on PBS back in like ’94 or ’95 (which was quite good, unlike Ken Burn’s unfortunate Jazz documentary that turned into a vehicle for the reactionary, neo-conservative bullshit of Wynton Marsalis & Stanley Crouch).
always down with the day glo and da inner sound y’all