Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
When De La Soul’s debut album, “3 Feet High and Rising” came out in March 1989, I was 9 years old (but going on 10!). But because I have an older sister five years my senior who was also a hip-hop head of sorts (and also my North Star on all things music), I would listen to anything and everything she did, no matter what. It was that dedication to my sister’s choices that brought me to De La Soul and “3 Feet High and Rising.” So here’s the funny thing, I don’t know if she actually had the album. She can’t remember definitively, either. What I do know is that I remember the album cover because it’s the kind of album cover that is magical and unforgettable.
The bright colors and the flowers and the lettering looked, to me, like something that I might have made in my fourth-grade art class and screamed, “SEE ME!” I remember “Me Myself and I” and the video for “Buddy (Native Tongues Decision),” which is different from the album version of the song.
Listen, that video for “Buddy” is a core memory for me. When this song and album came out, I was living in Frankfurt, Germany, and honestly was too young to really understand what was going on back in the States in terms of style and fashion. It was entirely possible that I didn’t even realize who was who on the song. I just knew that I was looking at a group of people who looked both fascinating and oddly … colorful. I didn’t even know what “buddy” meant. What I did know was that I wanted into whatever it was they were doing. It was around this time that my “borrowing” of my sister’s tapes became rampant, downright larceny. I wanted everything and anything that had to do with hip-hop. It would be another two years before I discovered De La Soul’s second…
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