De La Soul - Brief Article

Interview, August, 2000 by Matt Diehl

Art Official Intelligence (Mosaic Thump) (Tommy Boy)

Hip-hop's seminal bugged-out brothers return, and not a moment too soon. This time, it's with a fantastical first salvo in a career-climaxing three-album trilogy. Since their debut, 1989's Three Feet High and Rising, De La Soul have made genre-broadening an art, and their latest continues their maverick macking. Helping out is a mosaic of rap's greatest, from Busta Rhymes to the Beastie Boys, but it's the collaboration with Chaka Khan on "All Good?" that feels most historic and party-people friendly. And on "U Don't Wanna B.D.S.," De La take an all-too-rare-in-rap anti-gun stance, flexing an intelligence that's anything but artificial.