Stakes Is High

Product Information

The weirdest time in a writer’s life is the year between handing in a book and it coming out. You feel like a fantasist. To have decades lived in that liminal space between albums must have been tortuous for the band. I imagine it didn’t mean nothing then, when during that interminable wait, Damon Albarn asked them to do Feel Good Inc with Gorillaz – and they ended up winning their first Grammy, 16 years after their debut album.

Like other De La Soul albums, Stakes Is High has a running theme, which in this case is the group's concern about the state of rap, as well as the state of hip hop culture and how it is regarded in general. The following sound clips are featured: I imagine there are a lot of hip-hop heads who were bright kids with undiagnosed learning difficulties, gravitating to rap as relief from the learning struggle. First music love is often a reaction to feeling like a school misfit, but in this instance, it was like my struggle with learning was reversed through the album.

On The title Stakes Is High and The Vocal Interlude.

I played the album on repeat the year I went to secondary school, and because I knew all the lyrics by rote, including the comic interludes between songs, I bewitched the coolest girl in class into choosing me as her best friend. That I was able to memorise and repeat it was unusual; I couldn’t make sense of the lessons at school. It was rough not understanding questions nor knowing how to answer them. Being able to recite 3 Feet High off by heart was a balm

We were just trying to think about, "How can we start Stakes Is High?" We was like, "Yo, let's try to do a collage of just people saying stuff," and then we was thinking like, "Yeah, let's maybe do like when the first time someone heard Criminal Minded." Then that's when we just start gathering up people. I just left a message on my phone and whoever would call I was like, "Yo, just let me know the first time you heard Criminal Minded." Everyone just started leaving messages and telling me when they heard it and so we had put it with that music.

Release

The song was one of the earliest mainstream productions to be handled by hip hop producer Jay Dee. The B-side to the single was "The Bizness", featuring Common. This song talks about the music industry. As you can imagine, because they sampled everyone from Johnny Cash to Hall & Oates, Steely Dan to Liberace, all on one album, they encountered enormous legal problems getting the samples cleared for streaming. Salamon, Jeff (August 1996). "De La Soul: Stakes Is High". Spin. Vol.12, no.5. New York. pp.98–100 . Retrieved December 16, 2018.