De La Soul‘s surviving members, Posdnuos and Maseo, teamed with Prince Paul, who produced their debut, 3 Feet High and Rising, on Thursday to celebrate the record’s 35th anniversary on The Late Show. To mark the occasion, the trio showed how to “cook a 35-year-old dish” — the album’s Steely Dan–saturated single, “Eye Know” — as if it were a stew.
Wearing neon aprons that evoke the album’s cover art, Pos told the crowd, “We have some simple ingredients, and what we need to do is start with whistles.” He dropped a couple of referee whistles in Maseo and Prince Paul’s pots to play Otis Redding’s iconic line from “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay,” and they were off.
“You gotta stir it quicker,” Pos teased. Then came beets (beats), “Pegs” (since the Steely Dan they’re sampling is “Peg”), sax, guitar, horns, and “of course, some Donald Fagan.”
Pos was feeling so good, he took an ussie onstage with his buddies and the audience in the background. “Smile for the camera,” Fagan sings in the background. Then he came around the front and delivered his verse, playing around with his introduction (as “Plug One”), and then he recited the second verse, which belonged to the trio’s late member, rapper Trugoy the Dove, who died last year. It was clearly a feel-good moment, honoring their friend and the three men all smiled and hugged each other at the end of the performance.
Around this time last year, Pos and Mase appeared on The Tonight Show, where they performed “Stakes Is High,” their 1996 single, with the Roots. During an interview segment, they paid tribute to Trugoy, with Maseo saying, “I want to thank Dave.” The men then encouraged a chant of “Thank you, Dave” in the audience.
