allmusic is OTM here:
Stakes Is High is often overshadowed by its predecessors in the De La Soul discography and, upon its release, it was lost in a summer of great import and consequence. Released on the same day as Nas' alter-ego epic It Was Written and sandwiched between albums like Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt and OutKast's ATLiens, it's very possible that Stakes Is High didn't get its rightful burn in respective tape decks and CD players. Aside from that, hip-hop was fully embroiled in the East Coast vs. West Coast beef, something in which the Native Tongues vanguards were seeming nonplayers. But it's under these conditions that De La offered an album that was not only sonically excellent and creative and pure, but an album with the year's most relevant and prescient message. The stakes were indeed high. Inter-genre violence was bubbling beneath the surface, overshadowing the turn hip-hop was taking — a turn away from what was a mid-'90s renaissance of the late-'80s golden age excellence, quickly evolving into what is now known as the jiggy era. On "The Bizness" — a song featuring the quickly maturing Common before his lyrical touchstone One Day It'll All Makes Sense — Dave spits "Do not connect us with those champagne-sippin' money-fakers." Hip-hop was at a crossroads, a precipice — whatever you'd like to call it — and De La were concerned. "Supa Emcees" asked "Whatever happened to the MC?" and cautioned "MCing ain't for you!" "Dog Eat Dog" asserted that folks were "fucking my love in all the wrong places" — an obvious metaphor. "Baby Baby Baby Baby Ooh Baby" is a sharp satire of the Bad Boy-style hip-hop that was beginning its reign, fit with a beat as Hitmen-esque as an '80s R&B revision with Posdnuos rhyming in a conspicuously Biggie-like cadence. No, this was not an unabashed hip-hop classic like 3 Feet High and Rising and De La Soul Is Dead, or as provocative and fresh as some of its 1996 peers. It was, however, an entertaining and unapologetic De La album that placed hip-hop in front of a mirror. It's also an album that did its part to solve what De La were articulating as a problem, ushering in what would become the newer version of the Native Tongues, with multi-production from a young Jay Dee, Mos Def's introduction to most listeners, the aforementioned Common cameo, and hooks from Erykah Badu and Zhané, artists leading the burgeoning neo-soul movement of the time. It was as if De La were providing an antidote. Stakes Is High is an important album of this era, an album of great production and the most skilled of MCs who diagnosed symptoms of what they believed were hip-hop health complications — but it offered the medicine.
― cutty, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:28 (sixteen years ago) link
nah dog i just think it's lame to make MID 90s RAP MUSIC when the shit you made before and after doesn't sound much like it or to listen to the de la or tribe version when there's a lot better MID 90s RAP MUSIC
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:29 (sixteen years ago) link
de la or tribe version
but they were in the top tier of MID 90s RAP MUSIC
― carne asada, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:35 (sixteen years ago) link
that amg review does a pretty good job explaining why you would want to listen to de la's version of MID 90s RAP MUSIC - maybe u should put us up on the dozens of cats you fuck with who were making better rap music than de la or tribe in 96?
― and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:37 (sixteen years ago) link
gabbneb have you ever owned a backpack
― cutty, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:38 (sixteen years ago) link
xp w/ dude saying the same thing - sorry man i know u wanna come off as a connissuer but you just sound madd dilettante/tokenist
― and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:38 (sixteen years ago) link
look im all about personal taste and shit like that but if you seriously think the single 'stakes is high' is weak (as u imply in this thread) youre bad at listening to rap music
― and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:39 (sixteen years ago) link
yes, i have backpacked extensively throughout north america, or wish i had, at least. but i'd rather listen any day to jay-z or ghostface or nas than chali 2na or el-p or i don't even know who.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:40 (sixteen years ago) link
i have no issues with those other artists, but you haven't EVEN HEARD stakes is high, man. come on.
― cutty, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:43 (sixteen years ago) link
what the fuck are you even talking about? seriously, what?
― and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:43 (sixteen years ago) link
i dunno this kind of hardcore selectivism with rap is whats always bugged me about ilm rock critic dudes... like if youre fucking with 99.999% non-hiphop and only love 11 rap LPs i guess you can afford to treat shit like stakes is high as some mediocrity thats beneath your sorry ass but that shit is classic to me
― and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:45 (sixteen years ago) link
(crocker!)
― carne asada, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:46 (sixteen years ago) link
I saw them on Landsdowne St when they toured for Stakes Is High. That show was FANTASTIC.
It is stupid and criminal that I don't have all of their albums.
― HI DERE, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:47 (sixteen years ago) link
(I've got 3 Feet..., Dead, Stakes and the first AOI disc)
― HI DERE, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:48 (sixteen years ago) link
(My brother has Buhloone and I always assumed I'd tape it off him someday)
(crocker)
― cutty, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:49 (sixteen years ago) link
http://img.youtube.com/vi/kHmvkRoEowc/2.jpg (crocker)
― and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:51 (sixteen years ago) link
LEAVE GABBNEB ALONE
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:54 (sixteen years ago) link
only love 11 rap LPs i guess you can afford to treat shit like stakes is high as some mediocrity thats beneath your sorry ass but that shit is classic to me
yeah, sorry, there's a space between only loving 11 rap lp's and being a completist rap geek
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:54 (sixteen years ago) link
thread taking a turn for the suck
― Euler, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:55 (sixteen years ago) link
i've always repped for Stakes. the people that push so hard for 3 feet are the same people that think the best hip hop group/production was Public Enemy (ie white dudes who were in college or highschool when they came out)
― jaxon, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:55 (sixteen years ago) link
but yeah cutty otm i haven't even heard the thing
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Stakes is fantastic.
― HI DERE, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:58 (sixteen years ago) link
skits suck, that's why later albums are better listens start to finish.
― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:10 (sixteen years ago) link
CHALLENGING!
-- HI DERE, Wednesday, April 16, 2008 4:47 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
i was there!
stakes is good but its got this really kind of unsatisfying stilted calculating feel - its when they started sounding like uh oh maybe we shouldve gone to college instead of fucking w/this shit
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:39 (sixteen years ago) link
also no prince paul :(
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:43 (sixteen years ago) link
nah for me stakes is when they actually start to feel like real people i know instead of just goofy improv comedy dudes making weird rap
― and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:45 (sixteen years ago) link
not to diminish how dope the first 3 de la records are but for real stakes is raw
yah and that was sort of the whole idea of it - to bring it down to a human level - but a lot of their brilliance came w/being just out there - regardless of weather or not they were comfortable w/that anymore
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:47 (sixteen years ago) link
one thing that sure suks abt it is common
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:48 (sixteen years ago) link
btw ur completely fucking insane to think beats rhymes life should be even mentioned in the same breath as buhloon
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:49 (sixteen years ago) link
dude, "Bitties in the BK Lounge"!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:50 (sixteen years ago) link
"Why do people think just because we speak peace We can't blow no joints?"
― carne asada, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:50 (sixteen years ago) link
Common's verse on stakes is fine!!! Whip ANYBODY ass at NBA Live
― deej, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:51 (sixteen years ago) link
com on tha bizness is tha bizness fuk u if u disagree
― and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:52 (sixteen years ago) link
someone should go back in time to insure theres never any such thing as common
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:52 (sixteen years ago) link
for everybody who isnt spitting tired-ass recieved CHALLENGING OPINIONS about com sense heres the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyqUlpHs7YE&feature=related
― and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:53 (sixteen years ago) link
thats not a video
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:54 (sixteen years ago) link
no he's a hippie and likes poetry slams and therefore isn't hard enough for internet thugs
― Granny Dainger, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:58 (sixteen years ago) link
he's middlebrow
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:59 (sixteen years ago) link
he wears stupid hats
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 22:00 (sixteen years ago) link
ILM: we've solved rap music.
― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 22:00 (sixteen years ago) link
he raps abt his tedious ideas like hes explaining something REAL important to you
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 22:01 (sixteen years ago) link
also, stakes is high = jay dee
― jaxon, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 22:28 (sixteen years ago) link
-- and what, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:52 (26 minutes ago) Link
^^^
― The Reverend, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 22:30 (sixteen years ago) link
I saw De La & Common perform "Tha Bizness" together a few years back. Dope.
― The Reverend, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 22:32 (sixteen years ago) link
you guys were 13 when Tha Bizness came out, I was 13 when Me, Myself and I came out
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 22:37 (sixteen years ago) link
oh no fuk u guys so there
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 22:44 (sixteen years ago) link
I never thought I'd see the day BR&L gets praised like this.
jhøshea on a pile of money about Stakes, but can't back this revisionist idea of Common as a devil because of his latter day Badu mindstate/pants.
Resurrection for fucking all time.
― PappaWheelie V, Wednesday, 16 April 2008 22:45 (sixteen years ago) link