3 Feet High and Rising is the debut studio album by the American hip hop group De La Soul, released on February 6, 1989,[2] by Tommy Boy Records.

[9] 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.

[11] On the album, De La Soul sought to explicitly distance themselves from gangsta rap by "lampoon[ing] emerging tropes" such as the growing materialism within the genre.

[12] Their lyrics are instead characterized by a variety of "bizarre and surreal" choices of subject matter, such as dandruff, gardening metaphors, and "Dr. Dolittle-esque interactions with animals".

[15] 3 Feet High and Rising uses a sample-heavy production style; in addition to sampling from funk and soul tracks, as was popular in the hip-hop of the era, the album also draws from sources such as doo-wop, psychedelic rock, and children's music.

We layer the brightly-coloured hand drawn flower designs made with Posca paint pens on acetate over the black and white photographic portrait print, which is rostrum camera copied.

[...] The intent of the design of De La Soul's, 3 Feet High and Rising LP cover is to be new and bright, with the overlaying of the fluorescent flowers and text reflecting a synthetic pop cartoon look [...] This is a move away from the prevailing macho hip hop visual codes which dominate to this day.

"An inevitable development in the class history of rap, [De La Soul is] new wave to Public Enemy's punk", wrote Robert Christgau of the album in his 1989 "Consumer Guide" column for The Village Voice.

"[16] When The Village Voice held its annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1989, 3 Feet High and Rising was ranked at number one, outdistancing its nearest opponent (Neil Young's Freedom) by 21 votes and 260 points.

[31] Sampling artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, Hall & Oates, Steely Dan and the Turtles, 3 Feet High and Rising is often viewed as the stylistic beginning of 1990s alternative hip hop (and especially jazz rap).

"[34] Phil Witmer of Noisey cites De La Soul's "sampledelia" on the album as an "old-school" example of sampling being applied to "jarring, collage-like effect".

[citation needed] An NPR retrospective, published in 2023, stated that 3 Feet High and Rising "reshaped the public imagination of what hip-hop could be", and that it "still sounds wondrous and weird" in the musical landscape of the 2020s.

"[46] Macy Gray felt it was "the best record of the past 15 years" in a Q magazine, describing De La Soul as "like the Beatles of hip hop.

[citation needed] In 2011, 3 Feet High and Rising was among 25 albums chosen as additions to the Library of Congress' 2010 National Recording Registry for being cultural and aesthetical and also for its historical impact.

[48] America's recorded-sound heritage has in many ways transformed the soundscape of the modern world, resonating and flowing through our cultural memory, audio recordings have documented our lives and allowed us to share artistic expressions and entertainment.