The legendary hip-hop group Nas described as “hippies”
Nas is a keen student of hip-hop, always eager to learn from his contemporaries. But there was one hip-hop group from the old days who always stuck out—he thought of them as “hippies,” and he loved them because of it.
Nas has been on the promo circuit lately, pushing his new record with DJ Premier, Light-Years, which was released as part of Mass Appeal’s Legend Has It… series. Throughout 2025, this series has released music from legendary New York hip-hop artists including Slick Rick, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and Mobb Deep. There was a Big L posthumous album, plus a release from De La Soul, following the death of group member Trugoy the Dove in 2023.
While he was promoting his album with Preem, Nas spoke to Rolling Stone about his admiration for the creativity and brightness that De La Soul emitted during their heyday. “These dudes from Long Island had a different perspective,” he said, “almost hippies in hip-hop.”
De La Soul added a new dimension to hip-hop, focusing on its more playful side. “The hardest dude on the street was blown away by De La Soul,” Nas said, “because their expression gave us multiple colors through music. They had something that spoke to [us] the first time we ever saw television, heard music, it was all wrapped in the imagination of Posdnuos and Maseo [and Trugoy the Dove].”
Nas is not the first to categorise De La Soul as the hippies of hip-hop, as many others also picked up on their ’60s-inflected, colourful manner of doing things. Some even labelled their style as “hippy-hop,” but, as for the group themselves, it was an idea that they rejected. They just wanted to express themselves without labels.
“If some think that we have a hippy style and a hippy sound, that’s just fine,” Trugoy remarked in an interview with Melody Maker in 1989. “But we’d be offended if it was said that we wanted to be hippies. We don’t. We just want to be ourselves.”
The group’s first album, 3 Feet High and Rising, was largely concerned with a message of peace, which, in combination with the colour and warmth of their music and style, definitely added to the hippy perception. The record even introduced the group’s idea of the DAISY Age, which was an acronym meaning “da inner sound, y’all.” A lot of their style and tropes pointed towards their hippiness, but they never bought into it themselves.
“Our music is raw and it’s funky,” said Trugoy, “but, at the same time, it’s deeply soulful because this is the DAISY age and this is the sound from within. Rap doesn’t have to come off with hard basslines and heavy kicks and snares. People sometimes want to listen to soft music—even the hardcore crowd.”
Their music was about their inner sound, which could not be pigeon-holed. “There are lots of different views and descriptions of De La Soul and some critics don’t even consider us to be hip-hop,” noted Posdnuos in that same interview. “It seems to me that it’s impossible for us to be classified because we can’t be pinpointed to one certain feeling, one specific notion.”
Perhaps the group would disagree with Nas’ assertion that De La Soul were “almost hippies in hip-hop,” but he was not necessarily denying their other influences and styles. He was gesturing towards their unique way of operating within the hip-hop scene of their time, which, clearly, he admired greatly. They did their thing, and he loved them for it.
“We’re all different personalities and those personalities are given to changes of moods, which are reflected on the record,” said Posdnuos in 1989. “The De La sound is diverse—and that’s about the only categorisation you make.”