3 Feet High & Rising

Two CD pressing of the Rap trio's genre-defining 1989 debut album includes a bonus disc containing 14 rare B-sides and remixes: 'Freedom Of Speech (We Got Three Minutes'), 'Strickly Dan Stuckie', 'Jenifa (Taught Me)' (Twelve Inch Version), 'Skip To My Loop', 'Potholes In My Lawn' (Twelve Inch Version), 'Me Myself & I' (Oblapos Mode Version), 'Ain't Hip To Be Labelled A Hippie', 'What's More', 'Brain Washed Follower', 'Say No Go' (New Keys Version), 'Mad Daddy On The Left', 'Double Huey Skit', 'Ghetto Thang' (Ghetto Ximer Version) and 'Eye Know' (The Know It All Mix). 38 tracks in all. Warner.

De La's debut represented a new path for hip-hop, a reaction to conventions that had turned into clichés. It was friendly and playful enough to cross over to a pop audience (thanks to Prince Paul's production, which found the funk hiding inside Steely Dan and "Schoolhouse Rock"), but complicated and tough enough to be hugely influential in the hip-hop world. Cryptic but ecstatic, and sometimes sexy (especially the ingenious double-entendre "Buddy"), Trugoy and Posdnuos's lyrics invented a "new style of speak," dense with self-invented slang and metaphors. The hits, including "Say No Go" and "Me Myself And I," are delightful, but the little sketches and sound-experiments between them make the whole disc flow effortlessly. --Douglas Wolk