De La Soul
@ the Love Supreme Jazz Festival
6 July 2014

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Biography

Formed in 1985 in Amityville, Long Island, New York, De La Soul consists of Posdnuos (Kelvin Mercer), Trugoy the Dove (David Jolicoeur), and Maseo (Vincent Mason, Jr.), also known as Baby Huey Maseo and Pasemaster Mase. The three chose their stage names from “inside” jokes and references; “Trugoy” is “yogurt,” Jolicoeur’s favorite food, spelled backwards, and “Posdnuos” is a reversal of Mercer’s former nickname as a DJ. The three met in high school, and after playing in various groups began putting together a rap act distinguished by an offbeat selection of beats and samples and the three friends’ personal slang. De La Soul presented their first demo, “Plug Tunin”,” to local rap star Prince Paul (Paul Houston) of the band Stetsasonic. Houston was impressed enough to play the tape for a number of DJs and other music figures, and De La

Soul became the unsigned sensation of the New York rap scene. The band decided to sign with Tommy Boy Records in 1988.

The trio’s debut album, “Three Feet High and Rising,” produced by Prince Paul and featuring guest turns by rappers the Jungle Brothers and Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, hit the stores in 1989. It was a smash, and introduced a new look to the rap world: the psychedelic style of The D.A.I.S.Y. Age, which stands for “Da Inner Sound, Y’all.” The flowers that adorned the album’s cover led many listeners to pigeonhole De La Soul as hippies. But, as Trugoy told New York’s Matthew Weingarden, the band refused the label from the start: “We don’t mind if people say, ‘You remind us of the hippie days, of sixties things,’ because there is some of that in our music. But we’re not trying for that look - we’re just being us.”

Compared with many other late-1980s pop artists under the sway of 1960s and 1970s culture, De La Soul used their influences creatively and often subversively. Their samples frequently came from obscure sources like cartoons, game shows, and non-rock pop records, some of which came from their parents’ collections, as well as familiar R&B, funk, and rock tunes. “The Magic Number,” one of several popular tracks from “Three Feet High,” sampled a 1970s educational cartoon about the number three, turning the refrain into an anthem for De La Soul’s three members.