Is Dead
The Cabin in the Sky is a 1993 hip-hop album released by De La Soul, and it functions as a companion record to the group's 3rd studio album, Is Dead, which De La Soul issued the same year.
De La Soul is a 3-member rap group that has released 6 studio albums since its 1987 debut, and Is Dead arrived 4 years after their 1989 follow-up. Together the 2 records form a 2-part work: Is Dead holds the more confrontational material, and the Cabin in the Sky holds the more reflective, sample-driven half.
The records belong to a long line of Releases from the underground that have carried independent rap past the charts. De La Soul recorded for Tommy Boy Records, and their earlier album Stakes Is High (1991) had already pushed the group past the safe, party-rap formulas of their 1989 breakthrough. Their debut, 3 Feet High and Rising (1989), was certified 2x platinum in the United States and is often cited as the 1st album to establish the East Coast underground aesthetic at national scale. By the time Is Dead came out, Buhloone Mindstate was a 30-year-old persona the group had built across 2 albums, and De La Soul the brand had outgrown the party-rap lane that had sold the 1989 debut.
Is Dead and Cabin in the Sky as one project
Is Dead and the Cabin in the Sky are best understood as one 2-record project split across 2 LPs, a structure the group used because no single album could hold all the material they had cut in 1992. The 2 records came out on the same day, 19 October 1993, and share 1 production team and 1 thematic arc. Is Dead is the louder half, and the Cabin in the Sky is the quieter one.
- Is Dead runs about 47 minutes across 13 tracks and leans on hard, chopped 70s soul and funk loops.
- The Cabin in the Sky runs about 43 minutes across 12 tracks and leans on 78 rpm crate-dug breaks and gospel-tinged samples.
- Both records were produced by the group's in-house team plus a rotating set of external producers, and both were mixed by a single engineer for continuity.
- The 2 covers were photographed as a matched pair, one for each half of the project.
Release history
The release history of Is Dead and the Cabin in the Sky runs from the 1993 CD and cassette pressings through a 2010 anniversary reissue that gathered the 2 records into 1 box. Tommy Boy Records handled the original 1993 release, and the 2010 reissue was issued on the group's own label as a 2-CD set plus a 2-LP vinyl box. The 2010 reissue also added 11 previously unreleased tracks cut during the same 1992 sessions.
| Year | Format | Label | Contents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | CD and cassette | Tommy Boy | Is Dead alone |
| 1993 | CD and cassette | Tommy Boy | Cabin in the Sky alone |
| 2010 | 2-CD set | Group's own label | Both albums plus 11 bonus tracks |
| 2010 | 2-LP vinyl box | Group's own label | Both albums as 4 vinyl records |
Tracklist and where each half lives
The tracklist of the 2-record project runs to 25 songs in total, with the heavier material on Is Dead and the lighter, more reflective material on the Cabin in the Sky. Below are the opening sides of each half so you can see the split at a glance.
| Record | Side A opener | Side B closer | Running time | Track count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Is Dead | Intro | Outro | about 47 min | 13 tracks |
| Cabin in the Sky | Intro | Outro | about 43 min | 12 tracks |
Each side of the Cabin in the Sky runs under 22 minutes, which is a tight edit for a 7 inch vinyl side, and the 2010 reissue preserved those edit points when it re-cut the LPs.
Vinyl pressings and the Is Dead shirt
The vinyl history of Is Dead is short, because Tommy Boy pressed the original 1993 LP in a single run, and the 2010 reissue is the main later pressing. The 2010 box holds 4 12 inch records: 2 for Is Dead and 2 for the Cabin in the Sky. The 1993 single-LP pressing of Is Dead alone is the scarce one, and copies in near-mint condition trade at several times the price of the 2010 box.
- The 2010 2-LP box uses 180 gram vinyl at 33 rpm, the standard weight for reissue pressings.
- Each 12 inch side of the box runs under 22 minutes, keeping groove noise low at full volume.
- The 2010 box also includes a 24 page booklet with session notes from the 1992 recording.
Merchandise tied to the project has a 1 main item: the Is Dead shirt, a 1993 Tommy Boy tour tee that now sells in the 2nd hand market at a premium. The shirt carries the 1993 cover art, and size and condition drive the price.
How to hear the 2 halves together
To hear the 2 halves of the project as one work, play Is Dead first and the Cabin in the Sky second, in that order, because the group sequenced the 2 records to move from confrontational to reflective. If you only own the 2010 reissue, the 2-CD set already follows that order. Start with side 1 of Is Dead, finish side 2, then flip to the Cabin in the Sky and let the 78 rpm breaks carry you out. The 2-record arc is about 90 minutes long end to end, which is close to the length of a 2-LP set at 33 rpm.