As the warm, laid-back grooves of Dr. Dre’s irresistible G-funk soundtracked thousands of summer pastimes during those halcyon months of 1993, and the hip hop landscape hadn’t yet been polarized between East Coast ruggedness and West Coast thuggishness, Long Island’s De La Soul released the final installment in their Prince Paul-helmed trilogy, titled Buhloone Mindstate (1993), on the 24th of September. No one – critics, longtime fans, DJs, record execs, industry insiders – really knew what to make of it. After the sunny, forward-looking positivity of the landmark 3 Feet High and Rising (1989) had been subsequently crushed by the bizarre and disenchanted De La Soul Is Dead (1991), it was nearly impossible to predict where the trio would go next. A return to their hippie ideologies? A detour into grounded street narratives? Or more left-field, psychedelic experimentalism? Even the Native Tongue family had been strangely silent for the past year, after rising to prominence at the turn of the decade with career-defining statements from A Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, and Jungle Brothers, and rumors of soured relationships between members were beginning to circulate around the hip hop press.

Amidst this tumultuous musical environment De La Soul constructed arguably the most fascinating album of their career; only De La Soul Is Dead rivals it for sheer enigmatic value. At its lyrical core, Buhloone Mindstate is one of hip hop’s most cryptic records, a 48-minute sonic exploration riddled with obscure symbolism, geeky in-jokes, and complex visual poetry, all existing at a level of advanced lyric writing that has rarely been matched before or since. Compared to the 70-plus-minute durations that characterized the previous two records, Buhloone’s brevity is its first and most notable distinction. And unlike 3 Feet High and De La Soul Is Dead, whose uniformity was further defined by Paul’s revolutionary (for better or worse) between-song skits, there are only three interludes on Buhloone: one is the intro and two are brief answering machine messages. The cover of the album, while nowhere near as starkly symbolic as the cracked flower pot that graced its predecessor, still gives some indication as to the thematic content within. It shows Posdnous, Trugoy (Dove), and Mase, along with Prince Paul, looking from above into a pool of water. Their faces are distorted by the ripples, and there appears to be a water balloon floating on the surface. It isn’t until the “Intro” that the meaning behind this imagery, and the album’s title, is revealed.

“Intro”
The first sounds that greet the listener are those of a balloon being inflated, which then pops on the downbeat of a drugged horn loop from The Outlaw Blues Band (”Deep Gully”). The phrase “stick the bush” is chanted like a mantra, which is overlapped by “it might blow up, but it won’t go pop.” As the latter increases in intensity and repetition, the “balloon mind state” becomes apparent: the theory that an artist can increase in popularity without succumbing to commercial pressure or diluting the artistic vision (”selling out,” “crossing over,” etc.). At 0:52 the balloon pops again, which signals the arrival of the first track, “Eye Patch.”

“Eye Patch”
In the same spirit as “Oodles of O’s” from De La Soul Is Dead, “Eye Patch,” continues the group’s propensity for placing one of the least listener-friendly cuts on the record as the opener, almost as a spit in the face of the notion that the lead track on an album should be as attention-grabbing as possible. Over an incredibly lo-fi guitar and drum loop, Pos and Dove wax abstruse and casually trade bars with each other, adhering to no particular rhyme scheme and keeping themselves entertained with eye-rolling punchlines like “I Don like Rickles” and “take the horse into the Jolly Ranch.” At 1:22 Pos drops one of the record’s most striking quotables:

I be the in ’cause the brother holding Glocks is out.
I be the in ’cause the pusher running blocks is out.
I be the in ’cause the kid smoking weed, shooting seed which leads
to a girl’s stomach being about a half a ton is out.

After a brief series of shout-outs from the trio, the music abruptly returns to the Outlaw Blues Band loop that served as the intro. A sample of the French word “ecoutez” (”listen”) from the “Transmitting Live from Mars” interlude off 3 Feet High is repeated, along with the sounds of children laughing and various barnyard noises. The weirdness has only just begun.

“En Focus”
Buhloone picks up steam with “En Focus,” a relatively upbeat cut that centers (albeit vaguely) around the peculiarities of fame. Dres of Black Sheep and Pos’ young protégé Shorty No Mas are featured on the track though neither contribute a verse, instead playing supporting roles to Pos and Dave’s ruminations. Again, Paul keeps things simple, constructing a bare musical template of dusty drums under a simple bass pattern, which is occasionally supplemented by hand claps and sound effects. Pos begins by describing his early years with a pen (”I found fun in the scribbling of speak on a naked white sheet“) while Dove is cerebral almost to the point of nonsensical (”I felt the heave in the jeeve, tap it in the basement, diggin’ my own understanding“).

The appearance of Dres here suggests that ties to the Native Tongues hadn’t been severed completely. He throws lines off Pos and, along with Shorty No Mas, acts out two brief in-song skits between Pos and Dove’s verses. In the first, he approaches a female (Shorty) who refuses his advances because she’s become enamoured with Posdnuos and his celebrity status. Pos’ comment that once sales start dipping, “that’s when the amnesia starts,” proceeds the second skit, in which the female is now captivated by Dres. She asks him who he’s with, and when he answers Pos, the female hilariously replies, “Oh yeah, Positive K – oh, I like him.” During Dove’s last verse the chant of “stick the bush” can be heard, a subtle reinforcement of Buhloone’s thematic unity.

“Patti Dooke”
“Patti Dooke” finally gets into the real meat of the album, a six-minute epic of sorts akin to “Pease Porridge” from De La Soul Is Dead and a testament to Prince Paul’s standalone skills as an arranger. The track features the first hook of the album, provided by Gang Starr’s own Guru, as well as live brass from the JB Horns. 1960s film and television icon Patty Duke is used here to represent the industry that is relentlessly attempting to steal De La Soul’s sound, and indeed, the chorus of “Running through the trenches, it’s the Patti Dooke,” suggests a war is being waged between the Black artists and white musicians and record executives. The song opens with some beautiful jazz guitar playing while an unknown voice laments the “crossing over” of Black artists in the industry, wondering, “They [the white public] can accept our music as long as they can’t see our faces?” A peppy drum pattern then enters, as Paul orchestrates some tasteful organ comping and later, interjections from the horns.

Dove comments upon those who bastardize his style in the first (and his only) verse on the track before Pos declares proudly:

I’m known as the farmer, I’m cultivating, mate, without bending,
Mending, compromising any of my style to gain a smile.

He then points the finger at his label, Tommy Boy, who shamelessly “plant bridges” in attempts to cross over to the mainstream. A white label executive interrupts the proceedings to offer his justification: “We decided to change the cover a little bit, because we see the big picture: Negroes and white folks buying this album.” In Pos’ second verse, he mentions, “Bridges sagging to my woods down under,” which will prove useful in deciphering a later track on the album. The “It might blow up, but it won’t go pop” chant from the “Intro” is repeated here, making “Patti Dooke” a strong contender for the record’s centerpiece. As the track fades, the unknown commenter from the beginning returns, flipping the script and offering the question: “How many of them ever cross over to us, huh? I never seen five niggas on Elvis Presley’s album cover!”

“I Be Blowin’”
JB Horns saxophonist Maceo Parker occupies the entirety of the next track, titled “I Be Blowin’” (as in, “the soul out of this horn“), an instrumental solo feature for his playing. For nearly five minutes Parker riffs over a jazzy piano loop sampled from Lou Rawls‘ “You Make Me So Very Happy,” which will later become the musical fodder for the track “I Am I Be” on the second half of Buhloone. A breathy flute line is blended into the mix along with the sounds of a children’s playground (see the end of “Eye Patch,” above – perhaps Pos is somehow wishing to emphasize the then-recent birth of his first daughter?); the effect is absolutely lovely and hypnotizing. To say this track was unexpected at the time of the album’s release would be a gross understatement: what the hell was a jazzed-up horn instrumental with no vocals doing on a hip hop record back in ‘93? Who did these guys turn into, Divine Styler?

“I Be Blowin’” – De La Soul feat. Maceo Parker 4:58 (Buhloone Mindstate, Tommy Boy 1993)

“Long Island Wildin’”
The mellow vibes of “I Be Blowin’” are interrupted by the next cut, “Long Island Wildin’,” which features Japanese B-boys SDP and Takagi Kan spitting over a thumping drum loop while Pos and Dove sit it out. A sample of Chuck D and Flavor Flav demanding to “bring that beat back” cues the beat, then the two MCs kick it kanji-style for nearly a minute before the naked drum pattern is flavored with a sample from Duke Pearson’s “Ground Hog” for four bars at the end. My Japanese is a little rusty (read: nonexistent) so I can’t offer a translation here, but regardless, the placement of “Long Island Wildin’” in the sequence is a delightful little diversion before the album gets back on track, although at this juncture one could be forgiven for wondering whether Pos or Dove will pick up the mic again.

“Ego Trippin’ (Part Two)”
What happened to part one? Who cares? The second single culled from Buhloone Mindstate and one of the most enjoyable selections on the record, “Ego Trippin”’ is hardly more than a forum for Pos and Dove’s rhyme skills, with their own lyrical eccentricities on full display, of course. As Paul brings in the “Harlem Hendo” sample (by jazz trumpeter Al Hirt), the group suddenly begins to yell uproariously, the screams reminiscent of the “Fat Lady” from De La Soul is Dead. In their verses, the two MCs alternate between various pop culture and music references (from Kriss Kross to Pete Rock to Johnny Gill) and hinting at selections from their back catalogue, from “Potholes in My Lawn” to “Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey).” Dove is in a particularly playful mood, proclaiming himself “the greatest MC in the world” with “ways that amazes popes,” while Pos introduces himself as “the Jericho Turnpike bandit,” referencing the freeway that runs the length of Long Island. The song concludes with another dose of the “Fat Lady” screams while the group chants “ego trip” and Paul mutters that “somebody’s crying in here,” before finally resting on a sample of a single G# major guitar chord. “Ego Trippin’ (Part Two)” is easily one of the oddest singles in the hip hop oeuvre, if only for the part where Shorty No Mas’ insists that Dove eats a muffin from an Easy-Bake Oven during Pos’ last verse.

“Paul’s Revenge”
This answering-machine interlude is basically a voicemail message from Prince Paul, who addresses a few business items before launching into a rather irate sermon about how The Source failed to credit him for some recent production work with Slick Rick. Presumably it’s included here because he actually says, “And you can quote me. And you can record this and put this on a record,” at one point in the message, though the writers’ names he vilifies are deliberately drowned out by the sound of – what else? – barnyard animals.

“3 Days Later”
An excerpt from Johnny Taylor’s “Love in the Streets (Ain’t As Good As the Love at Home)” serves as the foundation for the next track, which comprises two different moral lessons from Posdnuos and Dove. The “3 days later” refers to the interim between a tryst with Pos and a reputed skeezer and the ensuing doctor’s visit to diagnose the pubic enemy. Dove’s verse is a touch more serious, as he describes an average evening out that’s interrupted by a stick-up kid. Dove tries to bluff him then exclaims, “Now look at me now, he shot my ass dead.” This is followed by a sample from the film Deep Cover (1993), where Larry Fishburne’s character is sobbing while the voice of Jeff Goldblum is urging him to “get in the fucking van.” To underline Dove’s self-described tragedy, a female voice then mourns softly, “I love you, Dave.” It’s no “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa,” but as far as storytelling goes, one could certainly do worse.

“Area”
At first listen, “Area” would appear to be three and a half minutes of filler before “I Am I Be”: the beat is an unadorned guitar lick taken from the intro to Spoonie Gee & The Treacherous Three’s “The New Rap Language,” there is no chorus or hook, and Pos and Dove are again on some weird-ass tangent about who knows what. Upon closer listen, it’s actually a clever concept piece revolving around various East Coast area codes and their significance. The two MCs substitute the name-drops for numbers to protect the identities of their subjects (”703’s on my love bug,” and “my 202 keeps me marvelous“) and vaguely hint at some sort of narrative:

Well I’m taking my funds to the 301’s,
While I’m playing my flute in the rear kaboot.
My man from the 908, he don’t like it like that,
So I pipes ’till the sunshine hikes. (Dove)

“Area” is also notable for the first appearance of Maseo on the record, who steals the scene here with a series of call-and-response chants with an imaginary crowd as he tries to guess their area code. After a few unsuccessful attempts he gives up, shouting, “What is it?” to the audience in frustration.

“I Am I Be”
Comparable only to “Patti Dooke” in regard to length, structure, and depth, the five minutes that constitute “I Am I Be” are arguably the finest on Buhloone Mindstate and undoubtedly one of the shining moments in the group’s discography. The track begins with a melange of voices from the De La camp, from Shorty No Mas to Q-Tip, who state their name and a singular characteristic (ex. “I am Tasha, I be fly“). The Lou Rawls loop from “I Be Blowin’” returns, as well as the JB Horns, who color the sample with rich brass chords. Posdnuos enters at 0:52 with one of his most breathtaking verses to date, a 36-bar exposition that sheds light on the group’s newfound maturity, the shady dealings of their label, the birth of Pos’ daughter, and a no-regrets attitude toward his greener days from 3 Feet High. The Native Tongue schism is also expounded upon, with Pos claiming that the Jungle Brothers lied when they said the crew would be “Natives to the end, nowadays we don’t even speak.” He sums up his individuality in the last three bars:

If I wasn’t making song, I wouldn’t be a thug selling drugs,
But a man with a plan. And if I was a rug cleaner,
Bet ‘cha Pos would have the cleanest rugs, I am.

Naturally, Dove’s verse is a little trickier to decipher, as he uses obscure imagery and metaphors to convey his thoughts:

I bring the element H with the 2,
So you “O” me what’s coming when I’m raining on your new parade.

His last four bars echo Pos’, with a desire to walk on the “right side” of the road and a refusal to judge those who don’t. After an intermission showcasing a fuzzy Ernie Isley-ish guitar solo, Pos returns for another 12 bars to conclude the song, extinguishing the “hip hop hippies” tag with a desire to “bring the peace, not in the flower, but the As-Salaam-Alaikum.” The voices from the song’s intro return again, with engineer Bob Power lightening the proceedings by cutting through the racket with, “I am Bob, and I be really, really tired of doing this here, guys,” before Maceo Parker closes the track with a sax solo.

“In the Woods”
The group follows the introspective “I Am I Be” with “In the Woods,” another album standout and the only cut to feature a full verse from a guest – here it’s then-unknown Shorty No Mas, who finally gets a chance to flex her lyrical skills after numerous bit parts on the record’s previous tracks. Still a senior in high school at the time of the recording, Shorty had connected to the group via Posdnuos, who invited her to drive up from Philadelphia to New York to contribute to the Buhloone sessions. Here De La equates “the woods” with “the underground,” to the misinterpretation of many listeners who assumed the group was back on some outdoorsy, nature-loving shit. Dove leads the song off with a “party over here” chant as the beat drops, then trades lines with Shorty during his first verse. Pos contributes the second verse with an urgency heretofore unheard on the record, practically shouting lines like, “Yo, that Native shit is dead so the sticker bush is coming.” Shorty delivers the final verse with a sophistication that belies her age, warning, “Don’t you dare consider me a fly gal, pal, I got props on a different tip.” A shame that little would come of her career other than an occasional mixtape guest spot here and there; Buhloone benefits immensely by her presence and signaled a mild cult following and public thirst for her talent that continues to this day.

“In the Woods” – De La Soul feat. Shorty No Mas 4:03 (Buhloone Mindstate, Tommy Boy 1993)

“Breakadawn”
The lead single from Buhloone Mindstate fared mildly on the singles chart, which had to sting given that the group’s sample budget was likely exhausted from the Michael Jackson appropriation that “Breakadawn” is built upon. It’s still a fantastic cut, and probably went over the heads of many listeners who were expecting more of the same D.A.I.S.Y. Age antics from the trio. Pos spits the first verse, describing his move from the Bronx to Long Island as a child and indulging in phonetic complexities like the lines that conclude his verse:

So get your butt out the sling, I stung Mohammad, float a note,
That means I’m def, so like the autographs I’m signing ’til the break (a dawn).

Dove’s verses are rife with compound rhymes and arcane references, while Pos continues to explore the ups and downs of fame and the hip hop community’s reaction to the group’s wild artistic trajectory. The track ends on the final line from his last verse, a summation of sorts that defines the trio’s place in hip hop: “De La Soul is sure to show that we will hit the charter harder than the normal rapping bull.”

“Dave Has a Problem… Seriously”
The second of the answering machine-message interludes, this one has even less replay value than Paul’s phone diatribe and is much more ridiculous. It’s better left to the listener to discover this one for themselves.

“Stone Age”
The diabolical Biz Markie makes a studio appearance on the final cut on Buhloone, which lets its guard down for a light-hearted session of beatboxing, line-trading, and some good, old-fashioned rhyming. Dove exchanges a few bars with the Cold Chillin’ legend while Pos demonstrates a new style of delivery as Shorty No Mas echoes a few select lines of his. The entire production has a genial, spontaneous quality unlike any of the other tracks on the record, and Paul and Mase dress up the dubby drum pattern with scratches and oddball sound effects. A fine way to conclude the record, proving that despite the the group’s eagerness to distance themselves from their past they weren’t entirely humorless, nor above indulging in a harmless bout of whimsy.