Tommy Boy
1996
Stakes Is High
About This Album
Stakes Is High is often overshadowed by its predecessors in the De La Soul discography and, upon its release, it was lost in a summer of great import and consequence. Released on the same day as Nas' alter-ego epic It Was Written and sandwiched between albums like Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt and OutKast's ATLiens, it's very possible that Stakes Is High didn't get its rightful burn in respective tape decks and CD players. Aside from that, hip-hop was fully embroiled in the East Coast vs. West Coast beef, something in which the Native Tongues vanguards were seeming nonplayers. But it's under these conditions that De La offered an album that was not only sonically excellent and creative and pure, but an album with the year's most relevant and prescient message. The stakes were indeed high. Inter-genre violence was bubbling beneath the surface, overshadowing the turn hip-hop was taking -- a turn away from what was a mid-'90s renaissance of the late-'80s golden age excellence, quickly evolving into what is now known as the jiggy era. On "The Bizness" -- a song featuring the quickly maturing Common before his lyrical touchstone One Day It'll All Makes Sense -- Dave spits "Do not connect us with those champagne-sippin' money-fakers.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11,12,13 and 15)

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