How De La Soul’s debut album 3 Feet High and Rising changed a Hong Kong DJ’s life
- Music consultant Simon Pang Washford says the American hip hop trio’s 1989 album was a work of art as it tackled subjects serious and flippant with playfulness and humour
American rap group De La Soul’s debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising (1989), revolutionised hip hop with its positivity, playfulness and humour. It set songs about subjects as serious as the dangers of crack cocaine, and as comical as poor personal hygiene, to a palette of unexpectedly funky samples featuring everything from Steely Dan and Hall & Oates to Liberace and French-language learning records. It also introduced the concept of the hip hop skit, with its knockabout game show interludes. Music consultant and DJ Simon Pang Washford explains how it changed his life.
I was about 20 when I heard it. I’d just finished an engineering apprenticeship and I was on the way to (the Greek island of) Corfu to try to blag a job as a DJ. I thought I could get away with playing the music I thought was cool, instead of the usual commercial fodder.
I wasn’t really into the whole hip hop scene as a lifestyle. I just loved the music and had been into it since about 1986. But around the time 3 Feet High and Rising was released, hip hop had grown very angry. This album just levelled everything for me. It was a work of art – everything went into the mix. It took samples from all genres – just stuff that puts a smile on your face. It’s so silly – it’s even produced like a game show.
It was like a story – something you could play over and over and over again. It brought some positivity and fun back into music.
The album also opened my eyes to lots of artists I wasn’t familiar with, from Steely Dan to old doo-wop outfits. As for it being life-changing, it made me go beyond the genres I thought I was into: it ignited an infatuation for breakbeats and a desire to explore every possible genre.