Reviews

De La Soul

The Grind Date

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Review Date: 2005-03-26

This rap trio has been around for a long time, in fact their first album came out in 1989. They have been around the block and back, survived the hard-assed gangsta rap of the early nineties and now have released a new album titled “The Grind Date”. The reason I say survived the 90’s gangsta rap movement is because the sound that De La Soul produces is unlike that of anything that could be associated with the word gangsta. De La Soul has that urban hip-hop feel to it but keeps the beats rocking a lot longer and harder than you would find in a Jurrasic 5 or Blackalicious track. At first I thought I was on to something with this De La Soul album, like I’d found something I had never heard before. Since then I have taken a step back, only from what I would score it though, it’s a rap album that if you like A Tribe Called Quest or Mos Def, it’s very likely that you’ll like De La Soul. In general I don’t know where my hip-hop tastes lie, but I think its somewhere inbetween De La Soul’s sound and perhaps a hip-hop artist with a bit more zing to their album. It’s obvious that they aren’t hardcore rap, and to be honest I would probably hate that album if they had made it that way.

With me and hip-hop, I always have to consider the beats, I weight them the heaviest as a judge an album, because I can ignore the bad rapping if for some reason the beat if amazing. A great example of this is “99 Problems” by Jay Z, it has one of the best guitar riffs that I’ve heard on a rap track, but unfortunately for Mr. Z, he can’t rap that well and his lyrics are tired. The first track I’ll tell you about is track four, “Shopping Bags (She Got From You)”. Truly its just De La Soul commenting on how women carry shopping bags and the reason they do it is because dudes are always buying shit for them. I would say the neatest part about the beat is that they have mixed in a few different elements to it, one is an almost hollow sound, but its high in pitch. The other is more like shaking maracas, and to be honest I don’t think there’s enough Spanish influence in hip-hop. The chorus is the part that I like the best about this song, but the verse are well put together, I can tell right away what I’m getting into with De La Soul, a hip-hop group that has something to say and that compelling message is laced within the lyrics they present to us.

“The Grind Date” is the fifth song on the album. It is probably my favourite song, but more to the point it’s my favourite beat. It’s a highly uplift beat, not the pace, but there’s like a strong positivity behind the beat. I guess if you were to think that it sounds like something I would compare it to a video game theme song. There is one bridge that keeps being used throughout the song that could be the sound they play right after someone wins something on a game show, but a more generic sound, not something overdone and laced with money sounds. One of the more eloquent lines is in the closing verse of this song, where one of the rappers, I’m unsure which one, says this

“…Your damn right I’m proud of myself and I’m proud of my chain man. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea…yo baby I don’t have sex with people I do bizness with neither, and that’s the real… But I do do bizness with people that I do have sex with, so if there ain’t no conflict lets get this Grind on cuz I’m gonna fuck the shit outta you”

It’s obviously a grammatical nightmare, but the point is that is a pimp line and I’m just laughing as I hear a man propose to a woman that he will fuck the shit out of her. I mean hey if that works for the hoes, that’s awesome, because take a page outta De La Soul’s book, hoe’s like to be told they are going to get fucked until they defecate.

Do you know who is on this freaking album? Flava Flav. I can’t believe that idiot weaseled his way onto this album but its track ten, “Come On Down”. The song has Flava Flav doing the backup vocals for the whole track, and well he sounds like he’s got a mouth full of food. Maybe it’s the gold teeth or the ghetto fabulous lifestyle, but whatever the case Flava Flav is certainly no De La Soul. It’s not without its charm, but he’s so unpolished I can’t enjoy him because I’ve seen him on some horrible reality TV show, that and he laughs like Ernie from Sesame Street. The beat on this song is epic, and I think that’s why you can listen to this song and despite Flava Flav’s presence, he can’t ruin that. But if I was to pick ONE thing on this song that I wanted to eliminate, it would be Flava Flav, he laughs too much in the song, and there’s this one annoying part in it where he starts shouting out to various cities and how he represents them. De La Soul is surprising me with the beats, I had thought the reason I might not like this album was the beats, there are some that lack the pace I require, but whatever, all in all I’m satisfied by over half the beats.

Last track I’ll touch on is numero two, “Verbal Clap”. It features a raw and simplistic beat, but it has on the end of the sample something that sounds a lot like a tuba. As I was reading up on De La Soul before I started doing this review they were saying that there is a jazz influence to their hip-hop, truly I guess I can see it. There are more undertones of jazz on the slower songs, the ones I don’t like as much, but whatever I’m not into jazz. The chorus is no big deal on this but I think the idea is that because it’s a verbal clap your supposed to understand that it’s a verbal assault to your senses. It’s funny about how they mention in this song that people about what their beats are lacking, but goes on to say that they are picky about the beats they choose. Well I don’t really know if that’s representative of their whole career, but if they are picky they seem to have done alright with the choices they’ve made on “The Grind Date”.

Tracks to Steal: “Shopping Bags (She Got From You)”, “Come On Down”, “The Grind Date”, “Verbal Clap”

Does De La Soul go beat for beat and rhyme for rhyme?

What the hell is a popcorn-ass nigga?

Judgement Passed

Score: 8.2

Seriously a good rap album, so it gets over an eight, I docked it a mark because there’s a few songs that seem to lack the same energy that is on the one’s I’ve mentioned in the review, but on the whole it’s a decent album that rap fans should enjoy and purchase.

- Brandon