On a hot, sticky night in 1988, the three 19-year-olds who made up De La Soul were getting nervous. The trio was about to play its first-ever gig, at an Irving Plaza dance party called Payday, and the main act—Stetsasonic, Tommy Boy Records’ big draw—hadn’t shown up. But even as the band waited in the wings, its troupe of dancers clutching giant cue cards with lyrics written on them—De La Soul knew it was onto something special. “I remember that night clearly,” MC Posdnuos (Kelvin Mercer to his mom) says today. “Being nervous and like, Wow, is this gonna go over well? But then we look into the crowd, and D.M.C. [of Run-D.M.C.] is in the front row! It was just amazing.” [Read More]