3 Feet High and Rising
1989 debut studio album by De La Soul
3 Feet High and Rising is the debut studio album by the American hip hop group De La Soul, released on February 6, 1989, by Tommy Boy Records. It is the first of three collaborations with the producer Prince Paul, and was the critical and commercial peak of both parties. The album title comes from the Johnny Cash song "Five Feet High and Rising". The album contains the singles "Me Myself and I", "The Magic Number", "Buddy", and "Eye Know".
The album was a critical and commercial success. It is consistently placed on lists of the greatest albums of all time by noted critics and publications, with Robert Christgau calling it "unlike any rap album you or anybody else has ever heard". In 1998, it was selected as one of The Source's "100 Best Rap Albums" and in 2020 was ranked 103 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. It was selected by the Library of Congress as a 2010 addition to the National Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". As of 2025, it is the only De La Soul album to be certified platinum by the RIAA.
Along with the rest of De La Soul's back catalog, 3 Feet High and Rising was not made available for digital purchase or streaming until 2023, due to concerns about the legality of the samples for digital releases.
Musical style
Released amid the late-1980s boom in gangsta rap, which gravitated towards hardcore, confrontational, violent lyrics, 3 Feet High and Rising stood out from this trend by showcasing De La Soul's more positive style.
“3 Feet High and Rising” enters the record as 1989 debut studio album by De La Soul. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Feet, High and Rising can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1079807. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 1998, 2020 and 2010.
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This entry incorporates text from “3 Feet High and Rising” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.