De La Soul's Resistance To Pop, 20 Years Later

1993 was a landmark year for hip-hop, with seminal albums from Snoop Dogg, A Tribe Called Quest, The Wu Tang Clan and more helping to forever change the landscape of the burgeoning art form.  Amongst these visionaries were De La Soul, a New York trio whose third LP, Buhloone Mindstate, flew directly in the face of expectation. Far from the expected pop-crossover attempt, Mindstate was weird, wild and wonderful; unapologetic, unexplained verses written in Japanese, off-kilter production, and a general sense of the bizarre—topped with a healthy portion of humor— led label boss Dante Ross to label them "the first sardonic group in hip-hop".  Over at Morning Edition, NPR's Oliver Wang celebrates the 20th anniversary of Buhloone Mindstate: check it out here.