By no means have De la Soul lost the dada carnival spirit that spotlighted them in the late '80s, but Posdnuos, Trugoy the Dove and Maseo are now decidedly less gigglesome. Still working rhymes of startling ingenuity, they've dropped between-song shtick in favor of a focus that clarifies their power. And they take on the hard stuff: machismo, idiot sex, overcompensating gangsta posing. "Fuck being hard, Posdnuos is complicated" is the battle cry — the tough choice for smart over swagger. Musically, Buhloone Mind State raises the stakes; it gets to something rap seldom achieves — a truly gorgeous groove.

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.