Stakes Is High

Performer: De La Soul
Artist: Common; Mos Def; Zhane; Truth Enola
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: De La Soul: Pos Plug Wonder Why, Dave "Dr.ama," (rap vocals); Maseo. Additional personnel: Common, Mos Def, Truth Enola (rap vocals); Zhane, Jazzyfatnastees (vocals). Producers: De La Soul, Spearhead X, Ogee, Skeff Anslem, Jay Dee. Engineers: Guido Osorio, Tim Latham. Recorded at World Recording Facility and Platinum Island, New York, New York. Audio Mixer: Tim Latham. Recording information: Platinum Island Recording Studios, New York, NY; World Recording Facility. Photographer: Eric Johnson . Unknown Contributor Role: Maseo. Stakes Is High is often overshadowed by its predecessors in the De La Soul discography and, upon its release, it was lost in a summer of great import and consequence. Released on the same day as Nas' alter-ego epic It Was Written and sandwiched between albums like Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt and OutKast's ATLiens, it's very possible that Stakes Is High didn't get its rightful burn in respective tape decks and CD players. Aside from that, hip-hop was fully embroiled in the East Coast vs. West Coast beef, something in which the Native Tongues vanguards were seeming nonplayers. But it's under these conditions that De La offered an album that was not only sonically excellent and creative and pure, but an album with the year's most relevant and prescient message. The stakes were indeed high. Inter-genre violence was bubbling beneath the surface, overshadowing the turn hip-hop was taking -- a turn away from what was a mid-'90s renaissance of the late-'80s golden age excellence, quickly evolving into what is now known as the jiggy era. On "The Bizness" -- a song featuring the quickly maturing Common before his lyrical touchstone One Day It'll All Makes Sense -- Dave spits "Do not connect us with those champagne-sippin' money-fakers." Hip-hop was at a crossroads, a precipice -- whatever you'd like to call it -- and De La were concerned. "Supa Emcees" asked "Whatever happened to the MC?" and cautioned "MCing ain't for you!" "Dog Eat Dog" asserted that folks were "fucking my love in all the wrong places" -- an obvious metaphor. "Baby Baby Baby Baby Ooh Baby" is a sharp satire of the Bad Boy-style hip-hop that was beginning its reign, fit with a beat as Hitmen-esque as an '80s R&B revision with Posdnuos rhyming in a conspicuously Biggie-like cadence. No, this was not an unabashed hip-hop classic like 3 Feet High and Rising and De La Soul Is Dead, or as provocative and fresh as some of its 1996 peers. It was, however, an entertaining and unapologetic De La album that placed hip-hop in front of a mirror. It's also an album that did its part to solve what De La were articulating as a problem, ushering in what would become the newer version of the Native Tongues, with multi-production from a young Jay Dee, Mos Def's introduction to most listeners, the aforementioned Common cameo, and hooks from Erykah Badu and Zhan�, artists leading the burgeoning neo-soul movement of the time. It was as if De La were providing an antidote. Stakes Is High is an important album of this era, an album of great production and the most skilled of MCs who diagnosed symptoms of what they believed were hip-hop health complications -- but it offered the medicine. ~ Vincent Thomas Still straight-up from Strong Island, still pushing the hip-hop envelope, still De La Soul. What these three guys have, if you don't know by now, is a platinum-certified knack for big, phat beats and literate, creative rhymes. The kind of beats that make you nod your head without thinking. And the kind of rhymes that make you hit "Rewind" in awe. Fluid. Smooth. But always an undercurrent of emotion--sometimes romantic frustration, as in "Dog Eat Dog," sometimes thinly veiled satire (it is, isn't it?), as in "Baby Baby Baby Baby Ooh Baby," and sometimes pride in their home turf and their talent, as in "Long Island Degrees." Sure, as on just about any hip-hop disc these days, there's the requisite "I'm the best" braggadocio. De La Soul has a right to brag, though. This band has stayed fiercely loyal to a pure hip-hop sound, and as a result is still 3 feet high (at least) and still rising.

Spin (8/96, pp.98-100) - Reasonably Good - "...Recording for the first time without Prince Paul....De La Soul have settled for a series of serviceable, mid-tempo grooves. There's a not-unpleasing nimbleness about STAKES, but toying with a groove, not merely establishing it, has always been the appeal of a De La record..." Entertainment Weekly (7/12/96, p.58) - "...Musically, they've traded in their gorgeously weird jazz-based soundscapes for sparser, straight-ahead beats....Still, De La Soul prove they can snap on new-jack poseurs as effectively as they did on the old ones..." - Rating: B Uncut (6/03, p.133) - "...It was on 1996's STAKES IS HIGH that they found their true mature voice..." The Source (7/96, p.87) - 4 Mics - Slammin' - "...Unlike trend chameleons whose personalities flow to the ebbs of ringing cash registers, da Soul spits into the winds of the reigning orthodoxy, targeting gangsta poseurs and microwave Mafioso..." Rap Pages (7/96, p.29) - 8 (out of 10) - "...With each album...De La Soul invariably shoulder the burden placed on them by fans to once again save Hip-Hop from the throes of commercialism....De La Soul's mission this time is to serve as a counterpoint to the `players' who have simply dominated Hip-Hop over the last few years with images and slogans centering on violence..." New York Times (Publisher) (7/28/96, Sec.2, p.30) - "...[STAKES IS HIGH] sounds deceptively relaxed and bouyant as De La Soul pulls off some complex maneuvers simultaneously....De La Soul has found its balance again. Its vamps are calm but determined, dipping into jazz and old soul. And the raps...are more straightforward..." NME (Magazine) (6/29/96, p.53) - 6 (out of 10) - "...no, they're NOT going to be hippy-rap clowns any more for anyone....at least they'll get respect from the hip-hop community by making another no-frills, monochrome rap record that is, well, alright..."

Skit comedy, abstract rhyming, samples from pop's left field, and a self-consciously intellectual approach to rap became hip-hop staples after De La Soul's 1989 debut, 3 FEET HIGH AND RISING. But despite the group's widespread influence, no one ever has ever come close to appropriating their singular style.

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