It's been 20 years since De La Soul introduced a funkier, sunnier brand of hip-hop with the genre-broadening classic 3 Feet High and Rising, an album that went on to inspire legions of innovative followers from Digable Planets and Mos Def to OutKast and Kanye West. Mase, Posdnous and Trugoy looked back at 3 Feet and shared some of their plans to commemorate the LP's anniversary in an exclusive track-by-track interview with Rolling Stone.

"We always wanted to be one of those acts that could be considered part of a legendary legacy," says Trugoy, a.k.a. David Jude Jolicoeur. "I remember back in the day, saying it's so cool that the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie are still played. That's what we wanted hip-hop to be, one of those genres that doesn't fade out when whatever's new is hot."

With 3 Feet High and Rising, the trio teamed with producer Prince Paul to create a template for free-thinking, creative hip-hop that wasn't afraid to challenge the still-budding genre's norms. "We appreciated what BDP, Dougie, LL and so many others were doing, but we had something else to say, and we knew there were people out there like us that wanted to hear something else," says Trugoy. "We felt like, if we wanted to look the way we looked and touch on topics we did, we shouldn't be fearful of doing it just because it was the boasting and the bragging and the gold chain era. We always felt that individualism and creativity and expressing it was most important."

To mark 3 Feet's two-decade anniversary, De La are putting together a tour, a book and a album including remasters and remixes of the original tracks, along with some "re-interpretations": In 1989, when the LP was released, samples were a new frontier and many on the album were used without clearances, which would prevent the tracks from being re-released. But De La has an electrifying idea about how they can release those songs.

"We've been in conversations with Warner Bros. to explore re-recording some of the songs with some of the people we sampled from," says Mase, a.k.a. Vincent Mason. The discussions are still in early stages, but the trio is hoping to cut "Say No Go" with Hall and Oates and "I Know" with Steely Dan, among other tracks. "It's real cool to know that we have lasted this long, people appreciate what we do," adds Posdnous, a.k.a. Kelvin Mercer.

In the late 1980s, the three members of De La had been writing rhymes and working on concepts for a while but their breakout album didn't come together until they connected with Prince Paul, then a keyboard player with Stetsasonic, and subsequently got signed by Tommy Boy. "When I met Paul, he was trying to express a lot of different ideas with Stetsasonic and it wasn't working out too well," recalls Mase. "We were looking to be professionals at making records and he was a professional. It just really sparked."