3 Feet High and Rising
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3 Feet High and Rising is the debut studio album by the American hip hop group De La Soul, released on February 6, 1989,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> by Tommy Boy Records. It was the first of three collaborations with the producer Prince Paul, and was the critical and commercial peak of both parties. The album title comes from the Johnny Cash song "Five Feet High and Rising".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The album contains the singles "Me Myself and I", "The Magic Number", "Buddy", and "Eye Know".
The album was a critical and commercial success. It is consistently placed on lists of the greatest albums of all time by noted critics and publications, with Robert Christgau calling it "unlike any rap album you or anybody else has ever heard".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1998, it was selected as one of The SourceTemplate:'s "100 Best Rap Albums"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and in 2020 was ranked 103 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It was selected by the Library of Congress as a 2010 addition to the National Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As of 2025, it is the only De La Soul album to be certified platinum by the RIAA.<ref name="Exclaim">Template:Cite web</ref>
Along with the rest of De La Soul's back catalog, 3 Feet High and Rising was not made available for digital purchase or streaming until 2023, due to concerns about the legality of the samples for digital releases.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Musical style
Released amid the late-1980s boom in gangsta rap, which gravitated towards hardcore, confrontational, violent lyrics, 3 Feet High and Rising stood out from this trend by showcasing De La Soul's more positive style.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The mirth and intelligence of De La Soul's self-presentation led many observers to label them a "hippie" group, a characterization that De La Soul's members have consistently disputed.<ref name="NPR">Template:Cite web</ref> On the album, De La Soul sought to explicitly distance themselves from gangsta rap by "lampoon[ing] emerging tropes" such as the growing materialism within the genre.<ref name="Vulture" /> Their lyrics are instead characterized by a variety of "bizarre and surreal" choices of subject matter, such as dandruff, gardening metaphors, and "Dr. Dolittle-esque interactions with animals".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The album features a recurring lyrical motif of the "D.A.I.S.Y. Age", an acronym that stands for "Da Inner Sound, Y'all".<ref>As stated by Maseo, "the stereotype and the stigmatism [...] was put on us with the hippy concept when D.A.I.S.Y. just was an acronym for Da Inna Sound." Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Guardian2014" /> Group member Posdnuos has described the daisy motif as intended to indicate the group's "sunnier", more playful ethos.<ref name="Guardian2014" />
3 Feet High and Rising uses a sample-heavy production style; in addition to sampling from funk and soul tracks, as was popular in the hip-hop of the era, the album also draws from sources such as doo-wop, psychedelic rock, and children's music.<ref name="Vulture">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="NPR" /> It has been described as "the first psychedelic hip-hop record".<ref name="RS" /> The album has also been noted for its use of unconventional song structures.<ref name="Exclaim" /> Posdnuos recounts that the group used Casio's RZ-1 drum machine and an Eventide Harmonizer to record, manipulate, and combine their samples on the album.<ref name="Guardian2014">Template:Cite web</ref>
The album is also known for its quiz show-themed series of skits, leading it to be frequently credited with inventing or popularizing the hip-hop skit.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Artwork
The album's artwork was designed by Toby Mott of the British art collective the Grey Organisation (GO),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> who had relocated to New York City after their attack on Cork Street's art galleries and subsequent prosecution.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
De La Soul's "D.A.I.S.Y. Age" concept inspired the design of the album cover, as Mott describes in his essay "Hip Hop in The Daisy Age": Template:Blockquote
Group member Trugoy has stated that De La Soul was not originally interested in the flower-adorned cover that the album ultimately featured; instead, he said the group had wanted an album cover that featured "an elevator halfway up with just our faces".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Reception and influence
3 Feet High and Rising received widespread critical acclaim upon its release. "An inevitable development in the class history of rap, [De La Soul is] new wave to Public Enemy's punk", wrote Robert Christgau of the album in his 1989 "Consumer Guide" column for The Village Voice. "Their music is maddeningly disjunct, and a few of the 24-cuts-in-67-minutes (too long for vinyl) are self-indulgent, arch. But their music is also radically unlike any rap you or anybody else has ever heard — inspirations include the Jarmels and a learn-it-yourself French record. And for all their kiddie consciousness, junk-culture arcana, and suburban in-jokes, they're in the new tradition – you can dance to them, which counts for plenty when disjunction is your problem."<ref name="VV"/> Rolling StoneTemplate:'s Michael Azerrad called 3 Feet High and Rising "(o)ne of the most original rap records ever to come down the pike", and described it as an "inventive, playful" record which "stands staid rap conventions on their def ear".<ref name="RS"/> When The Village Voice held its annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1989, 3 Feet High and Rising was ranked at number one, outdistancing its nearest opponent (Neil Young's Freedom) by 21 votes and 260 points.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Sampling artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, Hall & Oates, Steely Dan and the Turtles, 3 Feet High and Rising is often viewed as the stylistic beginning of 1990s alternative hip hop (and especially jazz rap).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Writing in retrospect for The A.V. Club, Nathan Rabin credits Prince Paul for helping "create progressive hip hop" with his production on 3 Feet High and Rising,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while author John Riordan says "its comedy skits and positive lyrics established the group as a progressive hip-hop act at odds with the increasingly violent image of mainstream rap."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Phil Witmer of Noisey cites De La Soul's "sampledelia" on the album as an "old-school" example of sampling being applied to "jarring, collage-like effect".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 3 Feet High and Rising is also credited with introducing the hip hop skit, a style of comedic sketch used both to introduce rap albums and as interludes between songs.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On the Billboard charts, 3 Feet High and Rising peaked at No. 1 on the R&B/Hip Hop charts and No. 24 in the Top 200.
Retrospective opinion
3 Feet High and Rising has been included on numerous "best-of" lists. In 1998, the album was included in The SourceTemplate:'s "100 Best Albums" list.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It was ranked number 346 on Rolling StoneTemplate:'s 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time",<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> maintaining the ranking in a 2012 revision of the list,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> then rising to number 103 in a 2020 revision.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> 3 Feet High and Rising was voted number 138 in the 2000 edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> while in 2005, it ranked 88th in a survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 2006, Q magazine placed the album at No. 20 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s".<ref>Q August 2006, Issue 241</ref> In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at No. 9 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Spex listed 3 Feet High and Rising at No. 5 on its list of the Top 100 Albums of the Century.Template:Citation needed The album has also been ranked as among the top albums of 1989 by publications including Rolling Stone, The Face, Record Mirror, Sounds, OOR, and Melody Maker.Template:Citation needed
An NPR retrospective, published in 2023, stated that 3 Feet High and Rising "reshaped the public imagination of what hip-hop could be", and that it "still sounds wondrous and weird" in the musical landscape of the 2020s.<ref name="NPR" />
Electronica artist James Lavelle cited 3 Feet High and Rising as one of his favorite albums. "It was definitely a reaction to the slightly more hardcore area of what was going on in hip hop. As a concept record, it's probably one of the best ever. It's like the Pink Floyd of hip hop, their Dark Side of the Moon – the way it musically and sonically moves around, but also the use of language was so unusual and out there."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Macy Gray felt it was "the best record of the past 15 years" in Q, describing De La Soul as "like the Beatles of hip hop".<ref>Q, October 2001</ref> The Village Voice described 3 Feet High and Rising as "the Sgt. Pepper of hip hop".Template:Citation needed
In 2011, 3 Feet High and Rising was among 25 albums chosen as additions to the Library of Congress' 2010 National Recording Registry for being cultural and aesthetical and also for its historical impact.<ref name="the Library of Congress Web Site">"The National Recording Registry 2010". Retrieved from the Library of Congress Web Site Template:Webarchive on April 8, 2011.</ref>
The track "The Magic Number" was used in the end credits of the 2021 film Spider-Man: No Way Home as a reference to the three iterations of Peter Parker that appear in the film.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The song also appeared in the menu of the 2025 video game MLB The Show 25, and in the game's intro.
Digital release
3 Feet High and Rising, along with the rest of De La Soul's catalogue up until their 2004 release, The Grind Date, was not made available for digital purchase or streaming until March 3, 2023, due to concerns about the legality of the samples for digital releases. Tommy Boy enlisted the music licensing company DMG Clearances to secure clearance for the samples, but talks failed with many of the copyright holders, as they were reticent to become involved with ongoing conflicts between De La Soul and Tommy Boy. After Tommy Boy was acquired by Reservoir Media, DMG Clearances restarted talks in January 2022 and negotiated licenses for most of the samples. De La Soul interpolated or replayed samples that could not be cleared.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
An instance of a track being altered for the album's streaming release is "Cool Breeze on the Rocks", which was replaced with "Cool Breeze on the Rocks (The Melted Version)". Whereas the original was a 48-second collage of dozens of samples in which the word "rock" is used followed by part of the quiz show skit that appears throughout the album, the "Melted Version" is only 18 seconds long, and the collage is replaced with the sound of a record being spun very fast (as if fast forwarding), followed by the quiz show skit. In 2009, Trugoy said of "Cool Breeze on the Rocks", "We weren’t thinking legalities at that time. We were just thinking about putting good music together, and although there was a process — even at that time, we did have clear samples, and turn in information — but our label didn’t think that really had to clear the samples because they only expected the album to sell a couple of thousand anyway."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Track listing
Track listing notes:
- On the original issues, "Plug Tunin' (Original 12" version)" is exclusive to CD releases; UK releases move "Potholes in My Lawn" to the final track.
- Some copies of the bonus disc reissue contain "The Magic Number (Chad Jackson Hip Hop Version)" as track 15 on disc two.
- Otis Redding is only credited as a featured artist on "Eye Know" on 2023 digital releases.
- Songwriting credits sourced from 2023 digital release; original release only officially credited sampled artists as songwriters for "Change in Speak" (Patterson & Scipio), "Eye Know" (Becker & Fagen), "Say No Go" (Hall, Oates, & Allen), and "Me Myself & I" (Clinton & Wynne)
- The 2023 reissue replaces "Cool Breeze on the Rocks" with "Cool Breeze on the Rocks (The Melted Version)," which substitutes the sample collage with a tape winding sound, reducing it to a run time of 0:17.
- All tracks are produced by Prince Paul and De La Soul, except "Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin's Revenge)", produced by Prince Paul, De La Soul, & Michael Fossenkemper, and "Description", produced by Prince Paul, De La Soul, and Q-Tip.
Personnel
Information taken from AllMusic.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- De La Soul – arrangers, production assistance
- Prince Paul – arranger, mixing, production
- Trugoy the Dove – arranger
- Al Watts – mixing, production, engineer, game show host
- Sue Fisher – engineer
- Bob Coulter – engineer
- Dan Miller – engineer<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Chris Irwin – engineer
- Greg Arnold – assistant engineer
- Steven Miglio – layout design
- Jungle Brothers – performer
- Q-Tip – performer
Charts
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Weekly charts
| Chart (1989) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums (ARIA)<ref name="ARIA history pages (albums)">Template:Cite web N.B. The High Point number in the NAT column represents the release's peak on the national chart.</ref> | 129 |
| Chart (2007) | Peak position |
|---|
| Chart (2023) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Japanese Hot Albums (Billboard Japan)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 95 |
Year-end charts
| Chart (1989) | Position |
|---|---|
| UK Albums (OCC)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 68 |
| US Billboard 200<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 86 |
| US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 17 |
Certifications
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