Hip hop band De La Soul to visit Istanbul

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

De La Soul will take the stage at Ghetto. Company photo

Istanbul will welcome hip-hop legends De La Soul at Ghetto on Dec. 9. The U.S. trio was formed in 1987 in New York.

Kelvin Mercer, David Jude Jolicoeur and Vincent Mason make up De La Soul and are best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics and contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative hip-hop subgenres.

With its playful wordplay, innovative sampling and witty skits, the band’s debut album “3 Feet High and Rising” is considered a hip-hop masterpiece. It is also the band’s biggest commercial success to date, with their subsequent albums selling progressively less despite receiving high praise from critics.

A measure of the cross-over appeal of “3 Feet High and Rising” was that it was voted Album of the Year by NME, a title better known for its taste in guitar-based music.

De La Soul has influenced numerous other hip-hop artists such as Camp Lo, The Black Eyed Peas and Digable Planets. They were also influential in the early stages of rapper and actor Mos Def’s career and are a core part of the Spitkicker collective. They are the second longest standing Native Tongues Posse group after the Jungle Brothers.

In 2006, the group won a Grammy for their collaboration with Gorillaz on the single “Feel Good Inc.”