Stakes Is High

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I think that the energy we put into that song was similar to that of what Marvin Gaye put into “What’s Going On. Da Inna Sound, Y'all) philosophy on their brilliant and weird debut, Three Feet High and Rising (making them the first—and probably only—hip-hop act to appropriate a Johnny Cash song for their album title). Naughty By Nature member Treach also took serious offense at the record, creating a feud that only died down after about a decade and a half after Stakes Is High was released. Gangsta rapper 2Pac later retaliated on the song "Against All Odds" from his posthumous 1996 album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (as well as the unreleased song "Watch Ya Mouth" recorded during the same sessions).

All the tracks are as original from what I can hear, no edits which is too common with Hip Hop reissues. The title track and first single was produced by J Dilla and the album's second single, "Itzsoweezee (HOT)", with only Dave on vocals, was accompanied by a creative music video. Stakes Is High helped introduce rapper Mos Def to a wider audience, on the track "Big Brother Beat". At the end of track 9, "Long Island Degrees", a "redneck" explains why he hates rap music ("There's no music in it. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.Stakes Is High was mainly produced by the group themselves, with additional tracks provided by Jay Dee, DJ Ogee, Spearhead X and Skeff Anslem. Tip is playing this new beat for Pos from Dilla and based on the history that those two have, anytime Pos gave a head nod to some shit, Q-Tip ended up keeping the beat and try to make something out of it, so he tried to use reverse psychology on this particular one.

Bigger sound and clarity is spot on, an absolute winner of a reissue (why can't there be more like this). was a relentless attack on what De La saw as a decline, not only in hip hop music, but also in hip hop culture.

But Stakes Is High — working with other artists and pulling in music from different places — that was a challenging album. City-bred trio of Posdnuos (Pos), Dave and Maseo continued to impact Hip Hop culture with five more groundbreaking albums: "De La Soul Is Dead" ('91), "Buhloone Mindstate" ('93), "Stakes Is High" ('96), "Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump" ('00) and "AOI: Bionix" ('01). Love the flow of it, every track is focussed and is a real pleasure to listen to - whilst most people have got/ heard 3 Feet High (and don't get me wrong it's a great album), far less people have heard Stakes is High and its a shame because it shows how much De La Have evolved as a group. The song included many memorable lines such as Posdnous' " Gun control means using both hands in my land.