De La Soul ‘Buhloone Mindstate’ 25th Anniversary
Release date: 21st September 1993
Label: Tommy Boy / Warner Bros
Producers: De La Soul, Prince Paul
Profile (courtesy of Wikipedia):
“Buhloone Mindstate is the third studio album by American hip hop group De La Soul. It was released in September 21, 1993 by Tommy Boy and was the group’s last record to be produced with Prince Paul. Buhloone is a phonetic spelling of the English noun “balloon”. This theme is laid out in the intro track, which starts with the sound of a balloon being inflated; then the hookline “it might blow up, but it won’t go pop” is repeated over and over, until the sound of a balloon popping replaces the final word “pop”. This lends itself to the interpretation that the group hope to expand their popularity with their third album without selling out. At the end of 1993, Buhloone Mindstate was voted the eighth best album of the year in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics nationwide, published by The Village Voice. Robert Christgau, the poll’s creator and supervisor, ranked it fifth best on his own year-end list. In a contemporary review, Rolling Stone critic Paul Evans said the record was more focused than De La Soul’s previous albums and also more ambitious sonically: “Musically, Buhloone Mind State raises the stakes; it gets to something rap seldom achieves — a truly gorgeous groove.” In 2005, comedian Chris Rock named it the 10th greatest hip hop record of all time in a list published by Rolling Stone”
Additional info:
- The album comes in at #4 on Ego Trip’s Top 25 Rap Albums of 1993.
- The single ‘Breakadawn’ comes in at #27 on Ego Trip’s Top 40 Rap Singles of 1993.
- Listen to samples used in the making of the album on WhoSampled.
Listen: Youtube
Purchase: Discogs