The De La Soul/Dilla story is one of lost potential. With the help of Prince Paul's lighthearted production, De La redefined the landscape of hip hop throughout their first three album, but it wasn't until 1996's Stakes Is High that the trio would link up with James Yancey, then working under the name J Dilla. Dilla was responsible for the composition of the title track, and its hardly a coincidence that the song remains one of the group's, along with rap as a whole's, defining movements. With the amount of high quality material being released in the year, it seemed nonsensical for the group's warnings, but while the trio was letting their audience know that hip hop wasn't all peaches, it was Dilla working his craft behind the boards, brilliantly flipping samples to a degree that was unheard of at the time. Since the late '80s, De La Soul had been enforcing the native tongues movement, but it was J Dilla that would carry its presence into the 2000s with his material with Slum Village, and his catalog is ultimately what's keeping it alive today.
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