De La Soul’s Creativity Dims With ‘Stakes’ ** DE LA SOUL; “Stakes Is High” Tommy Boy

De La Soul’s three previous albums have served as beacons to guide their less creative hip-hop peers out of the dark waters of materialism and bandwagon-jumping toward pure imagination.

With the “Stakes Is High,” however, the New York group finds itself in choppy seas. Instead of pushing the envelope, De La Soul seems to have given in to the lack of imagination plaguing hip-hop, releasing the most conventional album of its breathtaking run.

While songs such as “Supaemcee” and “Stakes Is High” take commendable stances against the lack of creativity plaguing rap music, the group comes up with few musical remedies as effective as such earlier songs as “Me, Myself & I,” “Afro Connections” and “Ego-Trip.” “The Bizness” and “Supaemcee” offer points of light and plenty of rhyme-skills, but the music itself never raises the stakes. As Public Enemy found out with the ill-fated “Muze Sick in Our Mess Age,” you can’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).