Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump

10/03/2000 5:00 PM, LAUNCH
Martine Bury

Hip-hop is back--like it had been undergoing a secret, ritual evolution away from the guns, the bounce, and the bling. With the fifth album of its 13-year career, De La Soul once again takes the music as an art form and method of information dissemination to a body-rocking higher standard. Rap rarely takes a satirical look at itself. But introspection, humor, disillusionment, hope, and mad skill are all in the mix here.

In the music video for the first single, "Oooh," featuring Redman, the daisy-age philosophers and their crew trip through a hip-hop Oz, down the yellow brick road, asserting a brighter day is here. Posnduos, Dave (formerly Trugoy), and Maseo boom a rhyme style that's still tough, intelligent, and sometimes scathing. Verses pass between them like hot-buttered truth. In signature whimsy, it's done to jazz and funk beats that are deceivingly lackadaisical, fun, and breezy, evoking roller skates, Popsicles, and disco music. On "All good?" the trio criticizes thugged-out MCs motivated by the love of money and a music genre becoming based on commercial success. All the while Chaka Khan sings the refrain, "It ain't all good." But the fact of the matter is, it can be. Guests like Xzibit, Busta Rhymes, Freddie Foxxx, and the Beasties' Mike D and Ad Rock help testify to this. De La's got a special blend of activism music lovers have been aching for when they drop songs like "U Can Do (Life)": "Pop music/You'll buy it 'cause you choose ità I maintain like an old jazz singer."

Since this is the first installment of a series of discs, we've got a great story to tell our kids about the music as a movement. When was the last time you thought about hip-hop?