Who you gonna call?
Legendary rap trio unveil loquacious left-field humdinger after 12 years of radio silence. By Andy Cowan.
DE LA SOUL have always been a hip hop anomaly. Impervious to trends, Long Island’s perennial contrarians made a dramatic entrance brandishing flowers, African medallions and hi-top fades with 1989’s ground-breaking 3 Feet High And Rising as they cocked a snook to the prevailing West Coast gangsta nihilism and invented the much-abused hip hop skit. Three albums later they voiced sobering opposition to the bling, bullets and bitches of the Bad Boy Records era, as they took hip hop’s pulse and found it waning on Stakes Is High. Practically invisible since winning a Grammy for the lucid poetics of Gorillaz’ Feel Good Inc., the trio’s Kickstarter-sponsored return also boasts a whole new modus operandi. Infamously bailed out in the past by the sample police, rather than scour the vinyl crates they held free-form sessions with Los Angeles musicians, analogue recording over 200 hours of live music to effectively create their own sample library. This simultaneously simple yet complex approach supplies a consistent vibrant warmth to And The Anonymous Nobody, a loose concept set about an ‘everyday individual’ who bucks the norm, providing a perfect allegory for De La Soul’s career. The results are rich and often unexpected. The opening third ticks along at a head-nodding canter as they revel in their elder statesmen roles over the jazzy lolling grooves of Royalty Capes and sumptuous avant-soul of Memory Of… It’s a ready reminder how confident Posdnuos and Dave are on the microphone, riddling elliptically and throwing in references that only resonate several listens later. Their pop chops remain firmly intact too, Pain’s clipped guitar funk opening the door for an introspective Snoop Dogg verse that cryptically muses: “Now cash is the only motivation/But not for me, G/I’m into public relations…” In contravention of modern hip hop mores, De La Soul get more out of their guests than most. The most breathtaking surprise arrives mid-way through the sludgy stadium rap-rock of Lord Intended, as it morphs into a dramatic Queen-like operetta, the OTT Mercury quotient supplied with quivering histrionics by The Darkness’s Justin Hawkins as multitracked vocal chants hiss “Fuck everyone/For everything” and guitars widdle out of control. Thereafter, all bets are off as David Byrne scats nervelessly across Snoopies and Damon Albarn croakily croons like an old carouser over the muffled trumpets of Here In After, mere seconds after De La Soul have successfully negotiated driving indie rock. One step ahead of the pack, And The Anonymous Nobody is another stroke of inventive brilliance from ever-humble, non-showboating masters of the long-playing arts. It’s De La Soul at their typically atypical best.