The Making of 3 Feet High & Rising.

It was 20 years ago. Can you believe that? Can you even fathom that? This album is older than some of you reading this right now, and it's one of the greatest albums ever.

In the springtime of 1989, three teenagers from Long Island released an album that changed hip hop history forever. You gotta remember, when they dropped this album, it was unlike anything anybody had heard in hip hop at the time. Rap music has an edge. Artists like Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Eric B & Rakim, Run DMC, and KRS-One reigned supreme. De La ushered in a new style and sound all their own called the "D.A.I.S.E.Y. Age", prompting the masses to call them "hippies" and label their music "alternative." With the success of the album and crossover hit "Me, Myself, and I", De La essentially launched a new jazz-inspired, positive-minded sound to the masses, which we all know as the Native Tongue sound. Although they weren't the first group out the gate (The Jungle Brothers were), they took the Native Tongue sound to new heights, which eventually helped birth groups like A Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, Queen Latifah, Leaders of the New School (and Busta Rhymes) and the Jungle Brothers.

To celebrate this timeless classic, the good folks at HIPHOP.COM have a nice little feature on the making of the album. They talk to De La Soul's Posdnous and Dave (formerly Trugoy the Dove), the album's producer, their fellow LI school friend and Stetsasonic member, Prince Paul, and some of their golden age contemporaries about the making of this all-time classic. This is a must read for any hip hop fan. And yes, you have to read. It's not a YouTube video. It's not an mp3. It's an article....with words. Remember those?

PART 1 | PART 2