"3 Feet High and Rising": De La Soul's Track by Track Guide to Groundbreaking 1989 LP

"Tread Water"

Posdnous: "I never really liked that record."
Trugoy: "We actually sat down in Paul's room and came up with that idea. The sample just sounded so happy-go-lucky, skipping, playing hopscotch, the whole walking through the water and meeting animals and crocodiles and telling a story. It's like a children's story. Paul was always instigating our foolishness. When we started talking about meeting Mr. Crocodile, his eyes just lit up. He was like, 'Yeah, you talk about Mr. Crocodile, and you talk about meeting Mr. Rabbit.' So blame that one on Paul."

"Potholes in My Lawn"

Trugoy: " 'Potholes in my Lawn' was like another way to say beat-biter or sucker MC, like songs from Run-DMC, songs from MC Lyte. The lawn was our rhymes and the potholes were the pieces missing."

"Say No Go"

Trugoy: "Crack. We grew up around neighborhoods where there was an epidemic. We knew drug dealers and some of us actually stood on the corner ourselves. We didn't know about songs where people were boasting about being drug dealers at that time, so for us, speaking about social issues and things that were going on in our neighborhood worked. Those three words, 'say no go,' kinda caught our ear and we thought we could make that about not doing drugs."

"Do as De La Does"

Posdnous: "Paul had made that beat and he put it up — everyone was there that day. Our sessions became notorious and people would say, 'Let me go through there, because if I go through there I'll wind up on the record.' So, that day, Red Alert, MC Lyte were there, so we all jumped in the booth and started call and response in the silliest way we could."

"Plug Tunin' "

Trugoy: "First single. That was an important record, because I think that sorta signed how we were gonna approach writing rhymes, in terms of style. We were always impressed by KRS-One and how he always had a style, so instead of saying 'Mic check one, two' we would say 'Plug one, plug two.' It was a routine. A lot of people listen to that song and say, 'What the hell are you guys talking about? I don't understand a word,' but if you listen to it, you can get it. What's really cool about that record is the style, the pattern and the cadence of the rhymes."

"Buddy"

Posdnous: "Mase would always play the Commodores record ['Girl, I Think the World About You'] and we figured, let's make a song out of it. We didn't know what it would be called, the idea of 'Buddy' had come up and we had a session planned in about to week to record it, and we had a show with Q-Tip and Jungle [Brothers], meeting them for the first time. It was never planned for Jungle Brothers to be on that first album. They happened to come to that session while we were recording that song and we were like, 'Hey, you want to get on it?' and lo and behold, that's how we became the Native Tongues."

"Me Myself and I"

Posdnous: "That was the second to last song recorded for that album. Tommy Boy was loving how the album was going, but they felt like we needed an introduction song. That was the first time on this album where it was brought to our attention that we may need to make sure we have something that isn't so over someone's head. Mase and Paul had already mentioned trying something with one of the Funkadelic records. We did that record like it was nothing. We were surprised how big it got. Sometimes the simplest thing is what people can relate to."
Trugoy: "Originally, it was us trying to make sure we're saying we're not hippies. We were just being ourselves. People are now taking the song to be, 'OK, it's cool to be me and I don't have to be hard' — it wasn't really about saying that, even though the video came off like that."