High and Rising: A Book About De la Soul

by Marcus J. Moore

A stunning achievement that weaves cultural biography with memoir, HIGH & RISING is the first book about De La Soul, the era-defining hip-hop trio whose alternative ethos defied classification, touched millions of lives, and changed rap forever. ?De La Soul burst onto the scene with the release of their groundbreaking 1989 album 3 Feet High & Rising , an “anything goes” hip-hop masterpiece rooted in the tenets of rap but powered by a wandering imagination that landed in outer space. Between their dusty drums and obscure samples, De La’s debut was received as a new masterwork from a bygone era of Black experimentation. Formed in Amityville, Long Island in 1988 by Kelvin "Posdnuos" Mercer, Dave "Trugoy the Dove" Jolicoeur, and Vincent "Maseo" Mason, De La Soul rebuked classification. De La was just De La, the friendly avant-garde trio that dared to be different. They didn’t portray themselves as gangsters like N.W.A, or smooth-talking ladies’ men like Big Daddy Kane or LL Cool J. Instead, De La appealed to the Black alternative, to those who liked rap but also jazz and punk, and maybe owned a skateboard or played in the school band. Their music was positive and psychedelic, their album art and music videos were full of flowers and pink peace signs. Theirs was a rap with a broad sonic palette driven by out-of-the-box sampling which would set a blueprint for artists like A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, Pharrell, Kid Cudi, Kanye West, and Kendrick Lamar. But as quickly as De La ascended, they were faced with the pressures of an industry and record label that didn’t know what to do with them, legal battles around copyrights and sampling, and disagreements within the group about creative direction. Written by acclaimed New York Times jazz critic and author of The Butterfly Effect on Kendrick Lamar, High & Rising tells the whole story—the positive, the negative, the self-inflicted distress and eventual redemption of the band. In the process the book unpacks the birth of hip-hop and the evolution of alternative rap. Marcus also weaves in a deeply personal coming-of-age story about his journey through life and culture as a fan and young black man. HIGH & RISING is not just a hip-hop tale, it’s a triumphant book about staying the course, and how staying true to your integrity can lead to dynamic results.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Audiobook, Memoir, Hip Hop, History

240 pages, Hardcover

First published November 19, 2024

About the author

I'm an author and music journalist who covers jazz, soul, hip-hop, and rock for The New York Times, The Nation, Bandcamp Daily and Entertainment Weekly, among other outlets. My book, "The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America," is out Oct. 13 via Atria / Simon & Schuster.

Reviews

[Cait · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel bad for Moore that De La was so publicly down on this book. I understand that they’re probably sensitive about their IP after what they’ve been through, but it’s clear that Moore loves and respects their music. Biographies don’t need to be authorized!

The problem is that this book is poorly constructed and reads like a first draft. Moore’s writing style is very amateurish. He wrote in his own defense to Rolling Stone that no one would want to read a “scholarly” book on De La Soul, and that the book’s tone is intentionally light. I don’t buy it. This isn’t about academic vs. pop literature, this is about Moore genuinely needing to get an editor to rein him in when he writes “dusty drums” or “psychedelic beats” for the 20th time. It’s not scholarship, it’s the bare minimum.

And furthermore, why don’t they deserve a “scholarly” book? Why doesn’t Moore take his own project seriously? Give yourself some credit, dude.

His personal diversions are trite. Frankly I wish he had gone all-in on making it a memoir rather than calling this “the De La Soul book” and then slipping in self-aggrandizing paragraphs about how he’s just-like-them-fr. Let your research breathe! You don’t need to over-explain everything with shallow generalizations!

Put me in the ring. I could have gotten this book down to like 150 pages. If we cut out every time Moore writes something like, “But that’s the music industry, man. They don’t let you freaking be yourself! But De La Soul dared to be Themselves💜,” it will be light work.

[Rivers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to like this more. Felt more melancholy than maybe it should be

[David Crabtree · Rating 1 out of 5]

The band’s history and one monster album were disposed of by page 40. Isn’t that part the most interesting thing about the group? The remaining 150 or so pages give equal time to a bunch of albums I’ve never listened to. The author weaves his relationship with each album into the book which is fine, but I was not looking for a fan love letter. One star.

[Nathan Phillips · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, what I appreciate about this is that it got me to bump 3 Feet High and Rising in the car for the first time in a while (I used to call it my favorite hip hop record of all, and it's still top five I'm sure) then rewatch a bunch of De La's music videos on Youtube again and relive how effortlessly cool they were. Was coming at it from a very different angle than Moore because I was a suburban white kid who didn't listen to them until about a decade after their peak of popularity, so it's interesting to read his perception of how they upended his idea of Black identity, but personally I looked at Dave and Pos and Maseo and saw the hippest, most magnetically self-assured guys I could even imagine, in a way I never thought about guys who were far more popular by then like Biggie (and I fucking love Biggie).

I don't doubt I'll be revisiting the other albums shortly; what's strange is that I think I might find their music more consistent than Moore does given he wrote an entire book about them. He's quite hard on them at times, particularly their slagging off of gangsta rap and such, but that was always something I found kind of endearing about them. Anyway, I don't really mind a tough-minded, critical appraisal of the group, but Moore's informal and personal style didn't really work for me here. I didn't mind hearing about his own life and self-perception and how it coalesced with De La Soul's albums coming out, but it seemed to take center stage from the ostensible subject of the book, which is maybe a consequence of Pos and Maseo not granting interviews for it. I'd have liked to hear Moore delve more deeply into his opinions about the material if he wasn't able to be more incisive about the group's creative process; he rates Buhloone Mindstate and Stakes Is High as their peak, and I find that refreshing since I remember feeling like everybody else was sleeping on those records, but he complains that the first two albums haven't aged well, which I disagree with, and also I think I like the AOI series a lot more than he does, but granted, they were the first music the guys put out after I got into them so there's perhaps some recency bias. The book feels padded and very outside-looking-in, and Moore has a grating tendency to sweep everything up in an endless series of thesis statements. He has dozens and dozens of paragraphs that feel like they should be book-ending summations.

Anyway, I hadn't listened to De La as much in recent years for one reason or another, and the book brought their records back to the forefront of my mind and I still find them agelessly witty and exciting (I do think their skits are tiresome but I already thought that about every rap album when I started listening in the late '90s), so I'm grateful for the jolt back into their orbit that the book brought me. RIP Dave.

[Book Reviews by Tara aka Queen of Memoirs · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC REVIEW
This book was gifted by the publisher Dey Street Books

Let me begin by saying RIP to my favorite member of De La, David Jolicoeur, aka Dave, aka Plug 2, aka Trugoy The Dove. The hip-hop world lost a real one 🕊️💔. His presence and unique style shaped not just De La Soul but the entire landscape of hip-hop.

As a dedicated De La supporter, I was thrilled to see this book. I didn’t know much about the group beyond their music and was eager to dive into their story and the journey that brought them to iconic status. This book offers a fresh perspective on the group, giving us glimpses into their creative process, the challenges they faced, and their remarkable impact on music culture.

Every recording artist should hope to have a fan as loyal and dedicated as Marcus Moore. Marcus penned this book out of a deep reverence for De La Soul, and I see it as a comprehensive love letter of sorts. His admiration is evident on every page, and his research and personal reflections reveal just how important De La’s influence has been on the hip-hop scene.

Some chapters were more engaging than others. While I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning of the book, by the middle, it sometimes felt like I was reading an extended magazine article. I found myself wishing for a deeper dive during those sections.

My favorite part of the book was the final chapter. In it, Marcus begins with a letter to Dave, and he closes with heartfelt letters to his mother and his aunt, both of whom have also passed away. This chapter brought a deeply personal touch to the book, connecting Marcus’s own story with that of De La’s, which made for a powerful, emotional ending.

Overall, High and Rising is a thoughtful tribute, capturing both De La Soul’s legacy and the personal connections that fans like Marcus feel with their music. It’s a must-read for any fan of De La Soul, and it’s a reminder of the lasting impact that music can have on our lives.

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned/the content of this book made me feel…

…that my love for the seminal album isn’t just nostalgia. When Eye Know was released on Spotify ahead of the rest of 3 Feet High and Rising I must have listened to it 10 times straight off. This and World Clique by Deee-Lite were albums from my teen years that i only bought on cd in my mid twenties when funds allowed but both skirt the line of groove with simultaneous silliness and seriousness, but most importantly open arms and a love for the art.

This book covers the band, the band in context of the wider rap history, the ills of the music business, sampling and streaming. I can sing every line of Tread Water but I don’t think that I understood the influence that the band had in what seems like such an intimidating world now. I may not know the whole back catalogue but this is a great book for anyone that could feel the soul in the pop songs

[Gabrielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s like a super long episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s (or probably more accurately bandsplain) in that it is essentially a personal essay on why de la soul is the best.

I definitely enjoyed it but at times (like many a personal essay) it felt a bit long winded or indulgent. Would love to see it again after a heavy edit.

And “lol” just when I think “I’ve read more than any human can on the 1995 Source awards” another book sneaks in some history. At this point it was like I was there.

[George Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book left me feeling very conflicted but I loved the history and I love the group. But the tone was weird, like it gave De La more credit than they deserved at times and the author had such a deep level of love and respect for them, but it remained a downer the whole time. De La got a raw deal from the music industry and now they hate on this book cause they didn’t get a cut. RIP Dave. Also, loved listening to De La albums while reading this now that they’re on streaming platforms. Proud of high school me for finding all these songs even when they were unavailable.

[Adam Parrilli · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much great writing and a real musical travel through all the eras of De La Soul (though no mention of the Gorillaz! collaborations!?) Like the author I aged through De La's catalog and felt happily pushed by "...Is Dead" and "Buhloone Mindstate." Plus, where would we be without Don Newkirk and the biddies in the BK Lounge.

The band dissed this book and its existence and I got swept up in that not immediately realizing the labor of love Mr Moore put into this thoroughly researched book. It took an episode of the podcast Rolling Stone Music Now featuring an interview with Mr Moore to open my senses and pick this book up.

I guess (if I had to) I'd ding some of the heavier handed love note elements of the Epilogue and the lack of critical scope at times. All this being said, this is a great read for all the Golden Age of Hip Hop heads out there.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this would have been much better authorized as unlike say the Beastie Boys book there is very little discussion on the music the trio were listening to and vibing on

[Owen Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking forward to listening to more De La Soul and revisiting them in a new light!

[Brian Shevory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much gratitude to Dey Street Books and Netgalley for making Marcus J. Moore’s book about De La Soul, High and Rising: A Book about De La Soul available for preview. I was so excited to learn about this book since 3 Feet High and Rising was one of the first cassettes I bought with my own earned money (I also got It Takes a Nation of Millions and The Great Adventures of Slick Rick—De La was the only non-Def Jam album I had). So like Marcus Moore, the author, I also have a kind of personal connection to the band that spanned much of my life, so I really enjoyed this book on several different levels. One of the best aspects about Moore’s book is that it accomplishes many of the best elements of music writing and specifically books about a band’s discography and history. Moore’s writing provides a history of De La Soul, how they came together in Amityville, NY in the 80s. Furthermore, as a hip-hop band who pursued their own path of artistry and really developed their own kind of style and lingo that eventually became the Native Tongues, I really appreciated the kind of contextual analysis that Moore provides, situating De La’s music as both a descendent of the NY rhymes, but also just some guys in high school “buggin out” and having fun with music. Moore provides a nice, concise history lesson in NY hip hop to help readers understand the scene and how De La emerged in such a unique and different way. In recently reading S F Fernando Jr’s The Chronicles of DOOM, I felt like De La’s origin story is somewhat similar, and less tragic, to DOOM’s story in developing his skills and honing his musical talents in Long Island, right outside of NYC. Regardless, it was fun to learn about De La’s development, especially since 3 Feet High and Rising has such a special place in my musical development. To me, the album was always so joyful and fun. Their rhymes were funny, their music on this album was upbeat, and the fact that there were so many recognizable samples made them album so unique—that they were able to repurpose so many great songs and imagine music in such a different way, I always appreciated that about their work. Moore spends most of the book on De La’s first 4 albums, and I would say that the first 2—3 Feet and De La Soul is Dead are where the most detailed reporting and analysis are spent. Since these are probably the best known albums from De La, it makes sense. Moore’s detailed reporting, without the input of any of the members, also helped me learn a lot about their process, but more importantly, about the struggles and challenges they faced as hip hop artists who kind of challenged a lot of the more popular stereotypes and trends in hip hop. As Moore makes it clear, the band weren’t really into “blunts…Versace glasses,…slang…half-ass awards shows” (from “Stakes is High”). They really wanted to keep it real and keep their artistic vision true to themselves. Moore details what touring was like for them, and how that was part of the way they made revenue. In the 1990s, hip-hop artists didn’t really get brand deals, except maybe if they wanted to sell Malt Liquor, and with the exception of rappers like Will Smith or LL Cool J, there weren’t many roles for rappers on television or in movies. In some ways, I can understand how touring and making records was one of the only ways to keep revenue coming in, but as Moore also details, the terms of their Tommy Boy contract were not always artist friendly, and with 3 Feet’s extensive sampling, it caused some problems with compensating artists they sampled.

Moore’s book is comprehensive in that he covers De La’s entire discography, and he does spend some time on two other favorites of mine 1993’s Buhloone Mindstate and Stakes is High, from 1996. Like Moore, I also have personal connections with these albums—thinking about how Buhloone Mindstate came out when I had my first car, and it was another cassette that I often played while driving around with like nothing to do. I loved the sample from “Ego Trippin’” and “Break of Dawn”—both songs were kind of like at opposite ends of the spectrum—one the kind of bitter diss track that De La mastered in dismantling fake MCs, the other a kind of chill track. Stakes is High came out when I started college, and I remember listening to it a lot during my first year. I also got to see and meet De La on their tour. Somehow, my friend booked them at his university, and I ended up on their bus, totally geeking out about meeting them. It was exciting for me, but I can see from Moore’s writing how my references to 3 Feet High might have not been exactly what they wanted to hear at the time. I honestly was so excited to meet them, my mind went blank. But it was definitely a high point.
Moore’s later chapters detailing some of De La’s later work are not as detailed as the earlier ones. However, I loved how each chapter has both historical and technical details in the album’s creations, as well as Moore’s own personal reflections on the albums. I’m a little older than him, but I can appreciate how I kind of grew up with De La as well, and listened to them a lot through my early adolescence, through high school, and continue to listen to them. However, I loved reading about how De La taught Moore about just being himself, and that it was ok to be a young black man who just wanted to listen to music or do his own thing. That he didn’t need to flex hard or pose tough. De La meant much more to him, and served as a kind of role model. In fact, when Stakes came out, I didn’t have cable, so I missed the videos from that album. I was glad that Moore dissected them because I went back and watched those videos, and I loved it. Dave is just doing laundry, and Moore has this great analysis that he revisits later in showing how De La were just normal guys with exquisite rap skills, but still could just rap about everyday events and find such joy and artistry in these kinds of everyday activities. It was something that I never really considered before about their music, and how revolutionary and different it was. Moore’s writing made me appreciate them that much more. I also didn’t know about their names and that Trugoy, or Dave’s name, is really Yogurt backwards and that Posdnous is sound sop backwards as well. That was a fact that was really interesting to me. What I most loved about this book though was how Moore framed the book with De La’s first concert after Dave’s death, and then ended with a letter to Dave (and his recently deceased Mom), sharing how De La has made him who he is. I was really surprised and sad about Dave’s death, but Moore also talks about that kind of mortality that Black men, especially Black rappers, actors, and others in the entertainment field, often face, dying earlier from diseases and other factors that don’t seem to affect white people in the same way. It’s definitely something I’ve thought about after Guru died, and something I’ve noticed as with other rappers who have recently transitioned as well. Nevertheless, Moore’s book about De La was so much more than just a book about a band. It’s also a personal reflection about how music, especially music we grow up with, stays with us and shapes us throughout some of our formative years. This aspect makes his book stand out among other books about music. I hope he continues to write more books about artists, preferably about those he’s been influenced by. I will look forward to reading them.

[Todd Tieuli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m conflicted. I love de la soul, but I didn’t care about the authors opinion or life at all. I just wanted a history of the group.

[Matt Glaviano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings. And apologies for the length at which I express those feelings.

Context: I am a streaming discoverer of De La. Their catalogue becoming available hit me when I was exactly susceptible to what they offer. Decades late, I have fallen head over heels for 90s rap (particularly Tribe and the JBs). I love the pastiche and texture that sampling offers music. I love the scuff and hiss - the imperfections - of recorded noise. 3 Feet was a revelation; Bahloon Mindstate was exactly what the inside of my head sounded like in spring of 2024. Exactly.

I'm also a huge fan of Hanif Abdurraqib's work. To my mind, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest is the perfect music book, by turns informative, incisive, analytic, but still extremely personal. It's everything I've ever wanted in a music book.

I think that's where this book is coming from. I think it wants to be Go Ahead in the Rain but about De La. A respectable goal but a lofty one; Hanif's a high bar to reach.

And that's the perspective from which this review is coming.

High and Rising strikes me as a shallow version of Go Ahead in the Rain. And this might sound obvious, but I mean shallow in the sense that it doesn't go deep. It's factual history of the band doesn't cover anything but the broadest of strokes.

Moore's analysis of what De La accomplish strikes me as something that comes across through just listening to the group. Yup, they are funny, and endlessly creative and restless. And they made some dumb choices in the process. But that and dates are as deep as the book gets. There's no insight into Pos, Trugoy and Maseo outside of where they're from and how they met. There's a severe lack of analysis of their writing or sampling choices, to the extent that I found myself wondering if there were some permissions issues interfering. What little analysis is present feels generalized and not adequately supported The whole aspect of who and what De La were/are reads like a sketch that has yet to be shaded in.

Moore's personal insight into how De La's work impacted his life often feels the same way. There's a nearly school paper feel to his personal experiences at first; an editor makes a note in the margins that says "How? Detail!" and the author comes back with "This is how my life was affected, etc."

I think that gets a lot better as the book goes along. Moore's analysis - both personal and musically - sharpens when the book gets to Stake is High. It's more detailed when talking about the music (there are even quotations!) and Moore's experiences become more idiosyncratic than the earlier generations.

(Sidenote: I hate saying that Moore's work comes across as generic, in part because I relate so well to how passionate he is about his subject. He cares deeply about music and how it has soundtracked his life; occasionally he's quite effective at describing how it's soundtracked culture, too. What I really relate to is the sense of discovery Moore gets from exploring the wider continuum of music. How loving an artist leads you to explore what they listen to, where their inspiration or samples came from. How that exploration leads you into a wider world of discovery. How your net gets wider and wider. How you want to gesture lovingly at all the weird treasures you've collected. How you want that net to continually get bigger and bigger.)

Maybe Moore's age is the key factor here. Maybe his experiences with Stakes are more vivid because they're the memories of a grown up and not broad brushstrokes from a hazy childhood. Regardless, I think that the book gets better as it goes along, even if Moore sells Anonymous Nobody short and his text is too quick to dismiss it (also, more specifics about guest spots, please; there's at least part of your audience whose first real exposure to De La was through other folk's records).

While I have criticisms, I still think this is a great place to start an exploration of De La. More gives the group context and offers a broad palate of sounds that beg for exploration. Personally, that's one of the main joys I have in reading a book about music. You may know a lot of the references already, but there's always one or two you don't know. That's when you queue it up* and find those new sounds. After all, that sense of wonder and exploration is probably what brought you here in the first place.

*A plea for the hypertexted book. I want a digital book with links to all this shit. Name check an artist? Give me a link to their Wikipedia page. Name a song? Link me to YouTube, or better yet Spotify so that, if I like it, I can add it forever to my life (often called Liked Songs). It'd be a lot of work, yeah, and I'm aware it's probably not economically feasible (effort vs. return) to be worth while. But man, I want it all. I want the book to be a world that can connect me to the universe.

[Arch Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

The little black boy’s heart in my 32 year old black man’s soul needed this book at this very moment in my life.

High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul is an amazing telling of the careers, lives, trials and tribulations of all the members of Golden Era rap group: De La Soul, told through the life of the author, Marcus J. Moore.

I went in this pretty blind. I just saw the pretty yellow background, pastel daisies adorned book in Barnes & Noble and told myself to add this to my BHM reading list. Now don’t get me wrong, I knew the hits and classics of De La and also the legal battles and ultimate loss of Dave prior to reading this. As a pretty well known hip-hop connoisseur to my peers, this is common knowledge. Reading the depths of De La’s story through the life of a fan that actually got to grow up with the impact of their music from the beginning was absolutely astounding and cathartic.

The way Marcus J. Moore goes into caring and mostly historically accurate depth about the group, their impact in hip-hop and Black culture since the late 80s and ties it all back into how it affected his life and coming of age, for better or for worse (mostly better) is high art in itself. Diving into more deep cut knowledge on how the group assembled, rose to stardom, felt the pressure of the music industry to its current detriment, all the way to ultimately winning a 30 year label/digital distribution battle was very insightful. Pairing that with the inspiration and waves that De La brought to the game that ultimately opened the doors for some more of my favorite current artists, this hit home for me as a kid who fell in love with hip hop the day my aunt gave me a ripped CD of The Fugees “The Score” album.

Although I’m not far removed from the advent of De La Soul, I surely was not old enough or coherent enough to truly understand their legacy during the golden era. This book feels like it bridged that missing gap for me. Like I was placed in the 80s to experience this for myself up to now.

I will say, I was spoiled enough to listen to De La’s whole album discography up to “and the Anonymous Nobody”, that ultimately made the reading experience way more intimate.

I’ve seen a few reviews kind of ragging on this book for being kind of dismal, but that’s life. Sh*t ain’t a fairy tale, and the black experience is never a happy-go-lucky story. This was a real account, of real people going through real life trying to really stick to their guns. De La Soul and Marcus J. Moore did that in spades.

This book is easily 5/5 stars and I would easily recommend this to hip hop lovers and De La fans everywhere. This is a really good telling of most things you know, and even more you don’t, with a smattering of relatability to the author’s life.

To finish this off respectfully:

RIP Dave, Plug Two, Trugoy the Dove.
You will be forever loved and missed.
Listening to “Trying People” while reading this broke my heart, as it is so relatable, but I’m happy to know you made it for the world to love eternally.

To Pos and Maseo, thank you for keeping De La alive for so long and beyond the transition of Dave. You are the true definition of Black excellence and Kings that I strive to grow into.

De La Soul Forever.

To the Author, Marcus J. Moore:
Thank you for sharing this amazing telling of this group you loved so much. You made me love these guys even more than I ever thought I could. My fandom has definitely dived deeper after this reading. Wishing you the best and thanking you for sharing your life, struggles, and growth as a Black King with us readers as well.

Easily going down as one of my favorite reads in my literary journey.

[Chris Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than a simple biography

I am a fan of music-related biographies, but I cannot say that I am an especially big fan of De La Soul. I do own a copy of “3 Feet High and Rising”, but even that is not an album that I have spent hours dissecting the way I have some of my favorite albums of the era. I should also say that I am not a big fan of hip-hop or rap. There are groups that I like but for the most part, my tastes tend more towards guitar-based rock.

I came into this being mostly aware of De La’s reputation, and cognizant of how their fractured relationship with their label and use of samples had kept their music from streaming platforms. To that point, the copy of “3 Feet High…” that I own is one I had to track down after reading a “top albums of the 80s” article in Paste magazine and I decided that I needed a playlist with the albums from that list that I owned…this is one that I listened to a little in college, but never acquired my copy. Aside from listening to a few of their subsequent albums while reading this book, I am mostly a newbie to the rest of De La’s catalog.

This fact made stretches of this book drag on a little, but overall, I enjoyed the book. Before starting this, I read that the band had made some pointed comments and said that they were not involved in the book. In the end, I think this works in the book’s favor. Maybe there are stories or anecdotes shared with the author as he is writing the book, but you quickly realize he is as knowledgeable about the band as anyone could be. What shines the most, particularly as you get to the end of the book, is that the author, De La is a touchpoint that covers most of his life, and you see how that relationship between a fan and his or her favorite band evolves.

I am not a writer, and would never really aspire to be, but from time to time I have thought about books about my favorite band (R.E.M. if you’re curious) and how mine would turn out. As I was reading the last two or three chapters of this book, I realized this is the book I would want to write. It would be as much about me and my love for the music as it was about the band. I would be honest about the albums and songs I loved, defensive of those that I liked but knew weren’t in line with my favorites, and appreciate the missteps in the band’s history for what they were, while still appreciating the desire to produce something that was not a simple rehash of their greatest hits.

In that way, I loved this book, because I now feel like I know a little something about the author and understand him on a level that a love of music allows us to share — even if that music is something that could never resonate with me the way it resonates for the author. It probably helps that the author is of a similar age to me and hits a stretch of life where our mortality is starting to be something we think about.

I would think this book with really land with someone who grew up loving De La and other late-80s/early-90s hip-hop and rap bands. I think there is much to appeal to any music junkie, too. And now that De La’s full catalog is available on the major streaming services, it will help you find some interesting music, and that is never a bad thing.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

In fairness, like a 3.5. The good parts here are really good, in that Moore explores growing up with De La Soul as an avatar of Black normalcy--sure, their first album got promoted as hippieish fantasy (which was how I first encountered them), to a large degree to their dismay, and they spent much of their career more or less disdaining that image, which proves his point: this is a band that was resolutely normal and grounded, three middle-class guys who planned for the future (there's a great anecdote about their being on tour in Europe and staying in a mid-priced hotel with twin beds in the room) and never traded cred for fancy suits and drugs. (He mentions running into them at a 2019 Wu-Tang show, just standing in the crowd like everybody else, though he was too starstruck to say anything.) That part, the sense that you could pursue an artistic avocation without buying into tortured-artist conventions, and that this could resonate in unique and powerful ways with an audience of people who felt excluded by the conventional postures that predominated, especially in 90s rap, is powerful and compelling.

Problem is that there's A LOT of filler, a lot of fighting over the premise that sampling-is-art (which feels like an aesthetic battle from, I don't know, 1989?) and repetition of main ideas. More to the point, he doesn't seem to have quite grappled with the contradictions in his own story, which emphasizes how much De La stayed true to their artistic vision and never got gangsta, or blunted, or shiny-suited, or sing-songy, but also how much time they spent complaining about others not being as good, as true to the art form, as real, as creative, all of which bespeaks a sense that maybe they got stuck, too, in this vision of themselves that sold pretty well (he barely digs into any stats here, so I have no clue how well albums 1-4 did against each other or against other arty releases from the 1989-96 heyday, so DID Three Feet High actually sell well enough to make it a major financial success? I'd bet commercial juggernauts like Young MC or Tone Loc outsold them in 1989-90, but this never digs into that, so we're just left with the implication that the first album was a millstone) and were pissed when later attempts to break out of the hipy-dippy stereotype never went pop?

Moore talks a lot, and somewhat repetitively, about how constrained they felt by the perceived demand that they just remake that first album, but the middling reviews he quotes their later material receiving don't say that, even though his gloss suggests that they do. So you end up with something that is heartfelt and valuable for someone like me in locating this group's music and general gestalt in a specific sociocultural milieu that almost never gets noted or valorized, but that also feels not totally worked through. Did send me back to everything I own by them, definitely a worthwhile expenditure of my listening time.

[LLJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enormous thanks to #netgalley, #deystreetbooks, & #marcusjmoore for the opportunity to read this well-researched and heartfelt tribute to a legendary hip-hop group -- De La Soul.

Pos, Dave, and Mase have been a big part of the soundtrack to my own life since the very early '90s. Being a little bit older than the author, it was cool to hear his personal experience compared with my own. He was introduced to a variety of music via family members (his cousin, I believe, intro'd De La) and he described being immediately drawn to the band's unique style and vibe and to the inherent joy they exhibited through their music and visual presentation. I was very interested in the historical background of the band (including each of its members) as well as detailed information on each of the albums and its cultural significance at the time and later through the years. Though the band peaked and ebbed, the author did a great job showing how they stayed relevant as new "genres" arrived and departed within the music scene -- the rivalries that developed and the impact of corporate greed and power on the success (or stifling) of music and artists.

De La Soul (and references to their predecessors like The Jungle Brothers and later collective The Native Tongues) brought back the most incredible memories of unique and joyful times in my own college life. Seeing De La and Tribe and others at live shows and festivals. The energy and feelings of being lifted in those moments and the contagiousness of being with like-minded people -- singing, dancing, living out loud.

By opening the book with the Webster Hall event celebrating De La in 2023 (following the loss of Dave 'Trugoy the Dove' Jolicoeur from congestive heart failure) and then closing with the same even, the author bookends the entirety of the band's history and impact on the pages in between. In a true flashback-style, starting from the roots of De La Soul's formation, Moore then ends, again, at the disorganized and lively tribute -- poignant in the awareness of Dave's absence and the fact that he never got to celebrate the "release" of their music by a new label.

Finally, the epilog that Mr. Moore writes specifically to Dave, and to his mother (who passed six months later) and his Aunt Claudette -- people who shaped his life in so many positive ways, including a love of music and laughter, was a personal and heartfelt method of tying everything together and really driving home the purpose of the "High and Rising" book and the way these important players shaped the author into the person he has become. So glad I got an opportunity to read and review this one and I'm really looking forward to the audiobook version (which was not available by request on Net Galley earlier this year).

[Martin Maenza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dey Street Books provided an early galley for review.

I have been a fan of De La Soul from that very first album. As talked about in the book, I remember the time in 2014 when the band made all of their music to date available for free to download (I was one a many who added their digital offers to my own library that day). So, a biography of this important yet often forgotten hip-hop group was a must-read for me.

Moore does a very thorough job covering each of the De La albums, going into detail about the lyrics and production as well as filling in behind the scenes meanings and intentions. His sources for the band and their producers come from the public record (interviews and such). He also puts the records in context of the times when released, adding details about other hip-hop records that would have shared the same retail shelf space as the De La albums.

Since Moore did not speak directly to the band, the "personal" touchpoints of the book mostly come from the author's own insights: how the music made him feel, where he was in life when the albums came into it, etc. As an older reader with a wide curiosity of the human experience, this landed fine for me. Other readers might find the lack of first-hand memories from the group to be a point of lacking.

[Eartha Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

How, when, and where do kids with an affinity for music become cultural icons? It starts wherever they are whenever they decide to create something new and different. High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul by Marcus J. Moore tells how three quirky kids from Long Island brought their genius to hip hop and caused a cultural shift, redefining the genre. Marcus J. Moore engages readers with each member's backstory, the nuanced influences of the one member they'd eliminated, and the hows and whys a cacophony of sample usage impacted their royalty earnings and hindered their progress. Marcus Moore spills the stats like a die-hard fan, daring to tread the still waters of honesty. Teens enter the music business for fun. Adults remain in the music business because the numbers make sense. Before allowing a passion for creating music to interfere with an ability to earn revenue, artists need to understand intellectual property and the terms and conditions of their contracts. Though this does not appear to be an authorized biography, Moore delivers this cautionary tale with enough love and respect to stir a greater appreciation for the rap trio.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

***A big thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this upcoming book***
De La Soul is truly a one of a kind group that had a huge impact on hip hop, music and popular culture in general. I always liked them but knew their music was special when my son requested that we download their song "Eye Know" because it was featured in the latest Ninja Turtles movie and played it non-stop after seeing it in theaters.

This is a beautifully written, heartfelt love letter to De La written by someone whose life was truly touched by their music. It is mostly written using the author's insights and personal experiences with the occasional direct quote pulled from past interviews with members of the group. It covers the group from its inception all the way up to present day. My only gripe is that the some of the praise that the author heaps onto the group is repetitive and drags on a bit. It did not take away from my experience and I highly recommend this book to all fans of De La, hip hop or just music in general!
**** 1/2 stars

[Trae Mitten · Rating 2 out of 5]

High and Rising: NOT A book About De la Soul. It's crazy to invest the time reading 200+ pages about one of your favorite '80s groups and learning virtually nothing about them because the author is on some thinly-veiled, self-righteous rant about himself. Moore writes like he is next of kin to the group, yet never even talked to them. Moore basically does with his book, exactly what he accuses Tommy Boy of doing with De la Soul: Using them for his own financial gain, without regard for the men themselves. As a memoir of the times, Moore hits the mark and is very relatable. However, all the information on De la Soul is scooped from other writers' work. I guess this is the writer's for of "sampling."

Perhaps his word choice in the title is correct... A Book ABOUT De la Soul. About, as in never quite to the core of the group, but just on the periphery. Disappointing.

[Jenich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Že to je kniha o De La Soul bez De La Soul jsem věděl, ale i tak jsem čekal víc o nich než o autorovi. OK, nějaké nové informace jsem se o dozvěděl, ale jinak je to spíš takový deník, ve kterém autor popisuje jak vyrůstal s jejich hudbou.
Ke každé desce má nějaké vzpomínky. Docela dost prostoru pak věnuje jejich sporu s vydavatelstvím Tommy Boy, které bránilo vydání jejich hudby na streamovacích službách. Závěr už jsem přeskakoval, protože to bylo pořád dokola a informační hodnota nula.

Přečetl jsem už pár biografií v angličtině a zatím i moje velmi chabá slovní zásoba tak nějak stačila. Občas vypomůže slovník v Kindle. Nicméně autor této knihy je novinář a má slovní zásobu na evidentně vysoké úrovni, takže spoustu slov jsem viděl poprvé v životě. Ze začátku jsem poctivě překládal, ale byla to dost otrava, takže pak už jsem význam odhadoval podle zbytku, který jsem znal.

[Mike S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dug "Me Myself and I" as a kid when the single dropped, which, given that I was a suburban white kid, kinda tracks. Didn't really dig any deeper, but liked the vibe of how different De la seemed. Fast forward several decades and saw this on the new shelf at my library and made a mental note to read it and learn more about the group. Absolutely loved how Marcus Moore chronicled the history of De la Soul but included himself in the narrative, finding the group as a Black, gifted child in an East Coast suburb that felt a kinship to their left-of-center, outsider originality in hip hop, growing up with De la as a soundtrack to his life. It was heartfelt but clear-eyed, and as someone that wasn't all that familiar with the albums, I sped through the book this week, really enjoying the listen.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a proof/arc that I kindly won in a Goodreads giveaway, and I really enjoyed it. Marcus Moore has written a lively and passionate biography of De La Soul as well as a memoir of himself as a fan. This is an up-to-date exploration of a band/movement that moves through multiple eras of music and technology, from the 80s to the present day. As the music industry has radically changed, the power of De La Soul's contribution to hip hop remains large and prescient. Highly recommended if you're interested in music history, late-20th century hip hop, and lucid music journalism. I will definitely add this to my Little Free Library once it's officially released!

[Chyanne Diaries · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will be very honest. I never knew who De La Soul was. My father always played 90s rap around me when I was growing up but I never heard their songs. But it was nice to learn that their kind of group existed and their music and personalities was something that was able to coexist amongst the popular vulgar type of sounds that was out during their time. It just goes to show that you can do what makes you happy and not what's trending because you never know who is going to come across it. Representation is key and people need to see that there are people in the world who are just like them, regardless of their line of work.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book achieved its main goal, which was to remind me to listen to more De la Soul. But it was pretty mediocre on the merits. The author had no access to the group, the dissection of the music is middling, the analysis of the music business is superficial, and the attempt to weave in his personal story was clunky. Throughout the book it seems like we are observing the main subject from a very far away. It is structured as a tribute, but (and I think this is somewhat unintentional) it also makes it seem like De la Soul made one great album and then became disillusioned and spent the rest of their career coasting and complaining about it.

[Ryan Tabek · Rating 5 out of 5]

De La Soul is my second favorite rap/hip-hop group. This book might have been enough to push them into taking the top spot from A Tribe Called Quest. I’ve been spending a lot of time in their whole discography and as I read through the book it just blew my mind how good they are, especially on albums 3 and on.

This isn’t exactly a biography or a telling of the bands story. Sure it recounts the origin story and how they started their process. It talks about what they went through as a group, how they continued to evolve and what not, but it also focused on the eras of each album and how they approached those albums. There is also a lot of the author’s story as these albums pertained to his own coming of age story. All three of these components made this book quite the delightful read. It felt like it moved through certain eras or like some more could have been written over certain eras, but maybe that is what makes it similar to De La’s album, it leaves you wishing

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When first starting to read this biography of De La Soul, it's clear that the author is well-versed and well-sourced with the history and anecdotes about the group coming into their own. De La were and are trailblazers of (a kind of) alternative hip-hop. As the book goes on, it becomes clear that the history of De La serves as a vehicle for the author to describe his own coming of age memoir and how his superfandom rhymes with De La's story. Incredible commentary on releases from the group and others, as well as insightful and evocative feelings. A bittersweet journey, much like life itself

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times it’s nice to hear the connections Marcus has to De La Soul, but at certain points throughout this it feels more focused on his connection to the D.A.I.S.Y. Age then the D.A.I.S.Y. Age itself. As a whole it’s a great story of De La Soul and their evolution, but it needed a little trim. I don’t fully care if Marcus thought an album was good or bad, even with the ways he uses it to tie to the themes of De La, but it gets repetitive and a little much at points. Great writing though. Always enjoy his articles and other work. Emotional ending too!