High and Rising: A.K.A. the De La Soul Book

Journalist Moore (The Butterfly Effect) examines in this energetic account the legacy of hip-hop group De La Soul. Moore begins in 1980s Long Island, where Kelvin “Posdnuos” Mercer, David “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur, and Vincent “Maseo” Mason met in high school and began rapping together. They signed with Tommy Boy Records in 1988 and released their debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, the following year. Marked by a stripped-down, psychedelic sound inflected with jazz and punk elements, the record held unique appeal for a “Black alternative” audience, Moore writes; it also reflected an “against-the-grain” ethos that set the group apart from mainstream hip-hop acts and inspired such later albums as 1991’s De La Soul Is Dead, a “sardonic response to hippy culture.” Moore suggests, however, that the band’s “refusal to conform”—in addition to friction with their record label and a decades-long battle over streaming rights—helped fuel its descent into relative obscurity, despite bringing “freedom” and “weirdness” to a genre then dominated by artists who styled themselves as “screw-faced thug dudes.” Interwoven throughout are Moore’s resonant memories of becoming a De La Soul fan, as when he recalls watching the “Potholes in My Lawn” music video at age eight and thinking that “they looked like my older cousins and spoke just like me.” The result is a boisterous ode to an important rap group. (Nov.)