Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty

Twenty years ago De La Soul changed the face of hip-hop with their sunny, funky 3 Feet High and Rising. The 1989 release produced by Prince Paul went on to influence Digable Planets, OutKast and Kanye West, and notoriously faced some of the earliest legal actions related to sample clearing.

“I remember back in the day, saying it’s so cool that the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie are still played,” Trugoy, a.k.a. David Jude Jolicoeur, tells RS. “That’s what we wanted hip-hop to be, one of those genres that doesn’t fade out when whatever’s new is hot.”

To mark the record’s anniversary, De La Soul are assembling a tour, a book and a album including remasters and remixes of the original tracks, along with some “re-interpretations” — re-recordings featuring some of the artists whose samples appear on the original album. Nothing has been nailed down yet, but the trio hope to cut “Say No Go” with Hall and Oates and “I Know” with Steely Dan.

Mase, Posdnous and Trugoy looked back at their genre-broadening classic in a track-by-track interview with Evan Serpick. Check out the story behind “Me Myself and I,” how working at the mall birthed “Eye Know” and find out what “Potholes in My Lawn” actually means here:

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