Prince Paul feat. De La Soul: More Than You Know
From A Prince Among Thieves (Tommy Boy, 1999)
Nightmares on Wax feat. De La Soul: Keep On Rockin’
From The Sound of N.O.W 12″ (Matador/Warp, 2000)
De La Soul: I Gotta Believe
From Parappa 7″ (Tommy Boy, 2001)
Couple more De La tracks from the period between Stakes (which, for what it’s worth, is one of my favorite records from them; Dinninit and The Breaks are my summer evening soundtrack) and The Grind Date for you to revisit.
One of my favorite things De La do on the early records is pick a certain rhythmic pattern, and fit their lyrics to that template. They kinda moved away from that style later on, but it’s back in effect on this track (“I/ enjoy the gettin away from day/ to day stress so I need to leave/ soon”). They also flip their patented verselong metaphors (crackdealer as travel agent, addiction as a girlfriend) and pull it off in a pretty fresh way. Plus, they’re playing fucking crackheads, which is definitely rad. This track has it all: Pos and Dave rapping with Breez from Juggaknotts, Prince Paul on the vintage beat, and it’s from a damn rap opera. What more do you want?
Nightmares on Wax is a British dude whose music fits in nicely with the Ninjatune set. Usually on these types of albums, it’s the cuts with emcees on them that tend to slow the record down, but this one’s a highlight (shit, De La even made that one Propellerheads track worth listening to). Nice slow b-boy style break, bouncy rhymes. Nightmares on Wax’s DJ Kicks mix on K records is also worth checking.
Ok, so if you thought rhyming about Joe’s Apartment was unexpected, on this last one they’re rhyming about a video game, specifically Parappa the Rapper. Now, I’m not familiar with this game, so maybe I don’t get it, but it’s kind of surprising to me that emcees of such a high caliber would roll with such a cartoony and dumbed down version of their livelihood. I mean, I don’t hear Q-Bert doing demos for Superstar Scratchmaster or whatever (though he does trade cuts with the dude from Linkn Park on that new Handsome Boy record). Whatever though, the track sounds alright, and I’m glad the guys don’t give a shit. Trick Daddy better do a cut with Sugarbear or something though, or it’s going to be De La who truly rep for the kids.
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Never seen this Parappa track before – it's like the dream realised. On a side note dstill you should really check out Parappa it's charms are unending.
On a side note, Busdriver used what to me sounded like a direct rip off a beat of Parappa on his recent track Avantcore.
AAAHHHSHHHIIIITTT!!!!!!!
Now that you got this podfeed shizzle, I put my iTunes playlist on ear fuzz, and it's a tight li'l mix. Heat serious.
This post along with your other De La post just goes to prove that almost anything they touch is straight heat. It begs the question, can they do no wrong?
it seems so obvious NOW, but once you pointed out that De La Soul structure their lyrics to the beat I UNDERSTAND WHY IT SOUNDS SO WEIRD, and the WEIRD is part of what makes the song "work"
nice
Thanx a lot for the Parappa-track…unbeliveably FUNKY. I really like De La Soul, and you just added another reason to love 'em even more.
Thanx again
dope tracks, great writing, funky diggin', earfuzz my place these days…
Not too hard to find the Parappa 7" on eBay. There's a picture disk version and another limited press that's individually numbered. Nice for De La completists
De La wrote all of they lyrics for the actual game Parappa the Rappa (the first one only, I'm pretty sure). I'm sure they got a decent check for their work too.