High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul by Marcus J. Moore

Author:Marcus J. Moore [Moore, Marcus J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Music, Genres & Styles, Rap & Hip Hop, Biography & Autobiography, Soul & R 'N B, General, Entertainment & Performing Arts
ISBN: 9781529357967
Google: dhj8EAAAQBAJ
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-11-18T23:00:00+00:00

Part III

7

Where Were You the First Time You Heard Stakes Is High?

POS AND DAVE MASTERED SLEIGHT-OF-HAND FLOWS THAT SOMETIMES landed them in hot water. Occasionally they were direct, like on “My Brother’s a Basehead” and “I Am I Be,” but sometimes they could be too slick. So when Pos rapped “Stick to your Naughty by Nature and your cane, ’cause graffiti that I based upon the wax is insane” on Stakes Is High, the average listener took it as a diss to the New Jersey rap trio, almost to say: Listen to them if you want substandard bars; fool with us for the elite ones. That’s how Naughty heard it too. They thought it was a surprise attack from a labelmate. The whole thing felt random; that it appeared right at the top of the album made it feel like an announcement.

Turns out it wasn’t a diss at all, according to Pos. “I was just trying to say to someone like, ‘Yo, you stick to your way of how you get down,” he said. “Because what I have, it’ll get you beyond high. I’m just too potent. Instead of this saying, ‘You’ll stick to your nature because you can’t deal with my nature,’ I just said ‘Naughty by Nature,’ it sounded dope to say, kind of just playing on words. If someone was like, ‘I come sweeter than Jeru.’ I don’t think Jeru [the Damaja] would have been like, ‘Yo, you nicer than me?’”

I don’t buy that. If a rapper said something like “I got more soul than De La,” I’m guessing Pos, Dave, and Maseo would’ve taken issue with it. So I’m not surprised that Naughty felt a way about the line, as no one from the outside looking in would be able to discern Pos’s wordplay in the split second it took for him to say the rhyme. Quite frankly, it felt like a callout, even if he said he didn’t mean it that way.

The challenge with some artfully inclined rappers is that they expect listeners to comprehend their intent, even if the lyrics are convoluted and intricate and the meaning is buried too deep to be deciphered. There’s some backstory happening that doesn’t quite connect, or the lyrics only make sense when recited backward on a hill at dusk. As much as I identify with alternative hip-hop, I’ve also encountered rappers online who take issue with their music being misinterpreted by writers and casual listeners. Sometimes artists (myself included) can be too cryptic or highbrow. They can be a lot like certain jazz scholars who lambast those who don’t know every Duke Ellington deep cut and can’t tell them exactly how many footsteps there are between the Blue Note and the Village Vanguard. If the message didn’t land the way it was intended, did it really land at all?

After hearing the rhyme, Treach, the co-leading rapper of Naughty by Nature, was disheartened by what he perceived to be a diss. The groups were cool with each other because De La let Naughty open for them early in their career.

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