Sixteen years since they first somersaulted into the New York hip hop scene, De La Soul return with a long-awaited new album marking a new stage of their evolution. Never ones to rest on their laurels, The Native Tongues trailblazers, ’80’s survivors and self-described “students of hip hop” have re-emerged with all guns blazing, hoping to recover their mantle as the true guardians of the genre (like you haven’t heard that before). The good news for De La fans is that they have managed exceedingly well.
With the third installment of their Art Official Intelligence trilogy yet to materialise (following the last lacklustre effort in 2001), The Grind Date was intended as a straight De La album. Clean slate and back to basics on a brand new label (courtesy of Mr Matthew Knowles). Accordingly, The Grind Date has a great sense of occasion about it, combining a retrospective nostalgia with a convincing statement of intent. This is established in opening track ‘The Future’, linking past to present and proclaiming “the legacy of De La lives on”. ‘Verbal Clap’ carries on the same message, reinforcing their determination with heavier production and an in-your-face delivery.
‘Much More’ offers just that, with producer Supa Dave West returning to a happy medium (of yet the same message), with Yummy’s vocals adding yin to the yang and some good time soul. But the true showstealer, hands down, is ‘Shopping Bags (She Got From You)’ – a brilliant parody of a gold-digging woman which harks back to the days of ‘Bitties In The BK Lounge’. For all the weight of their guest vocalist line-up (Ghostface, Common, Carl Thomas, Flava Flav, Butta Verses, MF DOOM), I still think that good ol’ fashioned story-telling is what De La do best.
The album features individually strong tracks but over the course of the album the lyrical content is heavily self-referential and ultimately repetitive. Having said this, I suspect that The Grind Date is a grower of an album - and, were it not for the extreme Copy Protection measures taken, I would have happily enjoyed several more spins.
So a final message to Mr Knowles: having the very loud sample, "This album is for international press only", bowl you over at random intervals (sometimes up to five times within a song) is an inappropriate and downright annoying way to win over the journalistic community.