De La Soul have long been the kings of hip-hop playfulness. Fun and mischief-making have been at the core of the trio’s operation since the days they had fans counting the feathers on a Perdue chicken’s ass. It was baked into their early beats, sonic Jenga towers constructed by Prince Paul and the trio themselves, stacked with dozens of samples from Schoolhouse Rock to Otis Redding and Funkadelic. Even at their most aggrieved, thumbing their noses at critics and wack MCs or reluctantly shaking hands with music industry devils, they planted their tongues deeply in cheek and had airhorns ready to blare. Their perpetual thesis always returns to how whatever issues they’ve faced—as Afrocentric outsiders unafraid to get buck, as abstract lyricists attempting to grow while caught in a 34-year bout of sample-clearance hell—could be spun into a roller-skateable hip-hop wonderland.
On Cabin in the Sky, their 10th album and first in nearly a decade, they attempt to jump their most difficult hurdle yet. “Cabin Talk” opens the album with a skit in typical fashion: Actor Giancarlo Esposito plays the host of a conference exploring “perceptions of life and the hereafter” who does a role call for every featured producer and vocalist on the album, ending with the DayGlo trio. Naturally, Posdnuos and DJ Maseo sound off, but Esposito lingers on Dave, the one missing voice in the room. Dave, formerly known as Trugoy the Dove, passed away in 2023, weeks before the trio’s first four albums were made available on streaming services after decades of rights issues and, it seems, in the early stages of this album’s creation; out of its 20 tracks, he has only six rapped verses. Cabin has plenty of tears to shed and grown-man reflection to undergo, but unlike 2016’s And the Anonymous Nobody…, which generally skewed gloomy and portentous, this full-length tribute to Dave doubles as a Real Hip-Hop repast as colorful and weightless as the cloud-faced deities striding across its cover.
De La’s views on death avoid overt negativity, leaning closer toward the phantasmagoria of Flying Lotus’ You’re Dead! than the morbid pondering pervading the late Prodigy’s verses on Mobb Deep’s Infinite, a fellow entry in Mass Appeal’s New York-centric Legend Has It series. Per usual, the group’s love for mini-narratives can sometimes clutter the music and cause an interesting idea to outstay its welcome—the three-track run from “Just How It Is (Sometimes)” to “Day in the Sun (Gettin’ Wit U)” doesn’t need skits stitching the songs together when they’re already similarly themed. But the overall mood is agreeably potluck, a diverse spread of beats and rhymes to nourish the soul. The Pos-produced “Will Be” turns an interpolation of the Natalie Cole classic “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)” into a disco jam reminiscent of the De La Soul Is Dead cut “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’.” Other references to De La lore abound, ramping up the celebration: The orchestral medley during the outro of “YUHDONTSTOP” includes little flashes of “Me, Myself, and I” and “Stakes Is High.” During his sweltering guest verse on “EN EFF,” Black Thought adopts the rhyme scheme Dave uses on his first verse from “Stakes Is High,” with complaints about blunts and Versace glasses swapped out for passport bros and “half-assed hip-hop flows.”
That’s not to say things don’t get heavy occasionally. Cabin in the Sky is guided by a loose concept involving the titular houses where loved ones stay after they pass on. Pos often grapples with the loneliness and selfishness brought on by Dave’s absence, a wound he’s aware will never fully heal. “It’s like we lost a limb to gain a win,” he says frankly on “Different World” before fully playing devil’s advocate: “I know you’re providing us with warmth/But I’d rather you here with us, fighting through the cold.” On the title track, he weighs the loss of Dave against recently celebrating his father’s 90th birthday and reckons how his own family will deal with eventually “[watching] me slip away.” The grace of God and embrace of the divine are more prevalent here than on any other De La album, no doubt inspired by wrestling with mortality, yet the atmosphere remains nondenominational.
Stress also comes through in the way Pos, for the first time in his career, is asked to shoulder the bulk of an album by himself. Part of the group’s appeal was the interplay between its vocalists’ clashing brands of observational whimsy: Dave’s smart-ass baritone versus Pos’ grounded tenor, both of which frequently birthed beguiling turns of phrase. Pos’ banal abstractions are still fascinating and his flows are limber, but the OG dynamic is sorely missed, especially after hearing the handful of tracks where he and Dave do spit together. “The Package,” for example, is classic De La—Dave dropping gems like “Be mouse humble if you’re two crumbs up” and Pos claiming their style will get you higher than gospel or weed pens, all while Pete Rock’s swinging Impressions sample adds just the right pastel touch. Otherwise, much of Cabin plays like a modern version of 2004’s The Grind Date. If you’ve been hungry for De La’s takes on internet dating and navigating misinformation through nursery-rhyme melodies, you’ve come to the right place.
The production is uniformly warm and vibrant, and the list of beatmakers is bound to give any East Coast rap fan bouts of the itis: Pete Rock and DJ Premier are the marquee names, and their offerings, from Rock’s sprightly full-bodied flips of classic soul records to Premier’s trademark DJ cuts over drum breaks and loops, scratch that traditionalist hip-hop itch like no other. They’re joined by other luminaries like Seattle’s Jake One and Virginia’s Nottz, but it’s longtime collaborator Supa Dave West, with five credits across the album, who does the most to shape Cabin’s technicolor vibes. West’s gospel background consistently shines through, snapping percussion and golden instrumental arrangements tumbling down from on high. The drums, organs, bass, and synths on the title track all stagger-step around each other, creating a lurching beat primed for the pearly gates. “Good Health” and “Day in the Sun (Gettin’ Wit U)” respectively use maximal and minimal approaches to sun-soaked boom-bap that rattle with urgency and chirp with budding love. It has the pastel looseness of Buhloone Mindstate but is crisp and handsomely engineered.
De La have been watched over by several affiliates with their own cabins in the sky over the years, from Native Tongues brother Phife Dawg and superproducer J Dilla to singer Don Newkirk and Pos’ own mother, but Dave’s passing fundamentally changes the group forever. Three plugs is now two. Hearing Dave’s happy-go-lucky story of lust turning into love on closer “Don’t Push Me” is a bittersweet reminder that he’s gone but also affirms De La’s eternal sense of play. “Cindy said ‘If y’all stop, then Dave stops’,” Pos says of Dave’s sister on “YUHDONTSTOP,” the mission tough but clear. Cabin in the Sky is a massive reorientation point for a group that’s already been through several. Change can be messy, they seem to say, but when you have this many loved ones ensuring a smooth transition, it’s hard not to smile at it all.
