DE-LA-SOUL-Cabin-in-the-Sky-album-2025
There are records that are absolutely worth listening to and absorbing. Records that almost have an educational value, preparatory for a specific genre.
For hip-hop fans, “Cabin in the Sky” definitely falls into this category.
De La Soul's tenth act isn't an album in the conventional sense: it's a post-mourning monolith. The first without Trugoy the Dove – aka Dave Jolicoeur – who passed away in 2023, is configured, in a broad sense, as a concept about the afterlife and loss.
Don't expect the playful twist of “3 Feet High and Rising”. That season is archived, not due to senility, but due to a dialectic of destiny. Even without reaching the heights of innovation of their debut, this work stands as a sonic testament, a jazz-soul bridge thrown over the void left by the passing of their traveling companion.
The introduction spoken by Giancarlo Esposito prepares for something tribute, but De La Soul's signature is immediately recognisable: a sun that knows no greyness.
The lush arches of Yuhdontstop open an album always projected in Technicolor: from Natalie Cole's effervescent sample in Will Be to jovial improvisations in Cruel Summers Bring Fire Life!!, the Bananarama cover up to the super soul of the nineties BELIEVE (In Him).
The single The Package, produced by Pete Rock and built on the sample of Seven Years by The Impressions, is a sonic epigraph: circular and hypnotic groove, far from strident innovation but full of sumptuous continuity. Run It Back!!featuring Nas, samples Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police, while the final Don't Push Me incorporates the groove of The Message of Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five.
“Cabin in the Sky” is warm and rich in vitamin D, a tonic for the colder months. Many elements about the afterlife seem to be added after the fact, but the album retains Trugoy's voice and fits perfectly into De La Soul's surrealist world. With over 70 minutes of music, the album becomes an encyclopedic tome, for all hip-hop-loving Generation Z to discover.
“Cabin in the Sky” stands as a monolith of conscious hip-hop: the production, entrusted to masters of jazzy groove such as DJ Premier and Pete Rock, remains classic and sumptuous, eschewing trap traps and ephemeral sounds. The cast of collaborators – Nas, Killer Mike, Black Thought, Common, Slick Rick, Bilar, among others, complete a catalog of unassailable authorities.
It's a return to the canon that De La Soul helped forge. Master!
SCORE: 8.00
TO LISTEN NOW:
Yuhdontstop – A Quick 16 For Mama (Ft. Killer Mike) – Cruel Summers Bring FIRE LIFE!! (Ft. Yukimi)
TO BE SKIPPED IMMEDIATELY
Nothing at all. Over an hour of great groove!
TRACKLIST:
Cabin Talk (Album Intro) (Ft. Giancarlo Esposito)
Yuhdontstop
Sunny Storms
Good Health
Will Be (Ft. Yummy Bingham)
ThePackage
A Quick 16 For Mama (Ft. Killer Mike)
Just How It Is (Sometimes) (Ft. Gareth Donkin & Jay Pharoah)
Cruel Summers Bring FIRE LIFE!! (Ft. Yukimi)
Day In The Sun (Gettin' Wit U) (Ft. Q-Tip & Yummy Bingham)
Run It Back!! (Ft. Nas)
Different World (Ft. Gina Loring)
Patty Cake
The Silent Life of a Truth
EN EFF (Ft. Black Thought)
BELIEVE (In Him) (Ft. K. Butler & The Collective & Lady Stout)
Yours (Ft. Common & Slick Rick)
Palm of His Hands (Ft. Bilal)
Cabin In the Sky
Don't Push Me
DISCOGRAPHY
1989 – 3 Feet High and Rising
1991 – De La Soul Is Dead
1993 – Buhloone Mindstate
1996 – Stakes Is High
2000 – Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump
2001 – AOI: Bionix
2004 – The Grind Date
2009 – Are You In?: Nike+ Original Run
2012 – Plug 1 & Plug 2 Present… First Serve
2016 – and the Anonymous Nobody…
2025 – Cabin in the Sky
THE VIDEOS
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@wearedelasoul
