Me Myself And I

Album

3 Feet High and Rising

Label

Tommy Boy Records

Genre

Disco Rap

Media Type

45s

Duration

3:50

Composer(s)

Paul Huston;David Jude Jolicoeur;Vincent Mason;Kelvin Mercer

Entered Chart

Jun 3, 1989

Peak Date

Jul 22, 1989

Released

April 1, 1989[

Recorded

1988Studio Calliope Studios (Brooklyn, New York)

Catalog #

Tommy Boy Records

B-Side

Me Myself And I (Instrumental)

"Me Myself and I" is one of De La Soul's most popular songs, but the group hates it. They made this very clear during performances when they would introduce it by saying, "Let's get this over with," then chant, "We hate this song!" in the chorus. In interviews, they explained that it was foisted on them by their record label, Tommy Boy, which insisted they come up with a familiar, poppy song that could be released as a single and get them a hit. The song was both a blessing and a curse: it got them on the radio and earned them a bigger fanbase, but it sucked the oxygen out of other songs from their catalog they liked a lot better. This was the big hit from De La Soul's debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising. One of the most innovative albums of the late 1980s, it merged traditional hip-hop with humorous lyrics, abundant samples and jazz elements. It was helmed by hip-hop producer and DJ Prince Paul, who at the time was the keyboard player with Stetsasonic. Pasemaster Mase of De La Soul recalled to Rolling Stone: "When I met Paul, he was trying to express a lot of different ideas with Stetsasonic and it wasn't working out too well. We were looking to be professionals at making records and he was a professional. It just really sparked." Typical of De La Soul, there are a soup of samples on this track, but the main groove comes from Funkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep." That song's writers, George Clinton and Philippe Wynne, are credited on "Me Myself and I" along with De La Soul. The vocal melody is cribbed from the 1988 Jungle Brothers song "Black Is Black," which features the rapper Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest. De La Soul give him a shout in the lines: I know this so I point at Q-Tip And he states, Black is Black The song is about being yourself and wearing your individual style with pride, so it's surprising how the group would disparage it in concert. De La Soul rapper Trugoy The Dove explained to Rolling Stone: "Originally, it was us trying to make sure we're saying we're not hippies. We were just being ourselves. People are now taking the song to be, 'OK, it's cool to be me and I don't have to be hard' - it wasn't really about saying that, even though the video came off like that." Report This Ad "Me Myself and I" was the first rap song to top the R&B chart since "I Need Love" by LL Cool J two years earlier. This was a pretty big deal because rap was still on the fringes and the R&B chart was dominated by acts like Anita Baker and Luther Vandross. A few years later, acts like Naughty By Nature and Dr. Dre started showing up at the top of the chart. In the video, the group play high school students who are pushed to conform to traditional hip-hop norms. Q-Tip and Ali from A Tribe Called Quest make guest appearances, and their producer, Prince Paul, appears in the dialogue portion at the beginning, dropping this knowledge: "If you take three glasses of water and put food coloring in them, you have many different colors, but it's still the same old water. Make the connection?" Spurred by a documentary about De La Soul broadcast on the VPRO television station, "Me Myself and I" topped the singles chart in The Netherlands.

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Tell me, mirror, what is wrong?
Can it be my De La clothes
Or is it just my De La song?
What I do ain't make-believe
People say I sit and try
But when it comes to being De La
It's just me myself and I

It's just me myself and I
It's just me myself and I
It's just me myself and I

Now you tease my Plug One style
And my Plug One spectacles
You say Plug One and Two are hippies
No, we're not, that's pure Plug bull
Always pushing that we've formed an image
There's no need to lie
When it comes to being Plug One
It's just me myself and I

It's just me myself and I
It's just me myself and I
It's just me myself and I

Proud, I'm proud of what I am
Poems I speak are Plug Two type
Please oh please let Plug Two be
Himself, not what you read or write
Right is wrong when hype is written
On the Soul, De La that is,
Style is surely our own thing
Not the false disguise of showbiz
De La Soul is from the soul
And this fact I can't deny
Strictly from the Dan called Stuckie
And from me myself and I

It's just me myself and I
It's just me myself and I
It's just me myself and I

Glory, glory hallelujah
Glory for Plugs One and Two
But that glory's been denied
By kizids and dookie eyes
People think they dis my person
By stating I'm darkly pack
I know this so I point at Q-Tip
And he states, 'Black is Black'
Mirror mirror on the wall,
Shovel chestnuts in my path
Please keep on up with the nuts
So I don't get in aftermath
But if I do I'll calmly punch them
In the fourth day of July
'Cause they tried to mess with
Third degree, that's me myself and I

It's just me myself and I
It's just me myself and I
It's just me myself and I
It's just me myself and I