‘A new style of speak’: the lyrical genius of Trugoy the Dove

Thirty five years after its release, De La Soul’s debut album is firmly ensconced in the pantheon of unimpeachable classics, and Me Myself And I is a fixture on mainstream classic radio. So it’s easy to forget what a shock 3 Feet High and Rising represented on release. It was, gasped one US critic’s review, “unlike any rap you or anyone else has ever heard”. If that wasn’t entirely true – 3 Feet High and Rising certainly had antecedents, both in the easygoing humour of Biz Markie’s style and in the beat-digging, fast-cutting, eclectic sound of old-school DJs, as wont to play Dizzy Gillespie or the Monkees’ Mary Mary as James Brown and Funkadelic – it wasn’t far off the mark. The album certainly didn’t sound like anything else that was