3 Feet High And Rising

I'm listening to this album for the eighth time tonight and still can't wipe a wide-as-a-bus smile from my face. 3 Feet High And Rising is more than a massively-loaded, 23 track classic; trust me, that's possible. While some albums become a daily soundtrack, this has become a necessary fix. It's a sound that is exciting, fresh, invigorating, new, raw, sexy, crucial and cool – it is so good, this unassuming slab of vinyl, that all of rap's former summits have been scaled in one mighty effort.

De La Soul are a new breed of rappers. Where others drop their trousers, these three drop their inhibitions. Where others pose with Uzis, De La Soul would prefer to threaten with a daisy chain. While others keep macho company with militarism and B-Boy laddism, De la Soul just stare innocent, wide-eyed, and chubby-cheeked and spread colours which brighten and attract like the dawning of hip-hop's psychedelic age. It's the difference between what was and what will be. 3 Feet High has turned my world upside-down.

It opens with a game show snatch: y'know, a "Where In The World" type thing without the smarm and with four blunt dudes facing a Nicholas Parsons-like quizmaster, while the contestants wrestle with questions on Puerto-Rican chickens, the Batmobile, shredded wheat biscuits and an obscure French phase, we enter De La heaven.

The opening tracks roll out with a vitality that is so, so, so fresh it shakes you, the listener, like nothing else could. There is no escape, outside of pulling the plug, from the "Oh-goody-goody-goody" emotion. 'The Magic Number' and 'Change In Speak' swaggerike raps have never done before. 'Jenifa Taught Me' is about a chase, a bed and a little thing called Derwin who gets in all the right places and causes one helluva mess; you can guess the rest. 'Ghetto Thing' is serious shit – "Mary had a little lamb/That's a fib/They had two twins/Now she's only 14/What a start/But this is found common in these parts" – and its litany of social negatives hurts with an unease and zoom which mirrors Public Enemy. 'Eye Know' is a cut beyond belief and normal expression – feel the freshness and don't forget to feed the cat. 'Take It Off' is a sarcastic attack on fads, fashions and those who can't take the joke. 'Tread Water' mixes Dr. Doolittle with the Sea of Galilee and we've got a rap that is biblical in text and crazily erotic in texture. Tune in and turn over.

Side Two rebounds with energy but here it is properly channeled into streams of psychedelia and psychosis. 'De La Orgee' is one minute and eleven seconds of a breathless orgy while 'Plugg Tunin' could be pushed onto its own planet and left to survive and nurture quite happily. 'Me, Myself And I' is so catchy that I lost a finger on it but got it back coloured green when I delved into 'This Is A Recording'. 'Delacratic' states facts and figures while 'D.A.I.S.Y. Age' calls us back to base. The album ends with a return to the game-show and the conclusion that our four bird-seed-for-brains friends haven't got a clue and it's left to the listener to fill in the blanks.

3 Feet High… is breathtakingly brilliant. It succeeds because it is like nothing that has passed by before. It's brand new and dandruff-free. It's the album to listen to when the world ends while you're travelling home on the DART, when the ozone layer collapses on your house, when your bicycle gets stolen in Outer Bolivia. It is the silver lining with no home and need to get there. This is a dealing in delirium. Yo, Bam, Slam.

Welcome to The D.A.I.S.Y. Age.