This site’s been around for a minute, and every once in a while I feel like I’m repeating myself. Those of you who have followed us from jump should be well aware that I consider De La Soul to be one of, if not THE greatest hip-hop group of all time. No disrespect to PE, or OutKast, or Tribe, or The Roots, or Run-D.M.C., but the trio of Pos, Dave & Maseo have delivered consistently dope joints for a quarter century. Well, at least they did from 1989 until they dropped their last album, The Grind Date, over a decade ago.
It’s not like De La dropped off the map. They continued along as a touring outfit, guested on plenty of records, won a Grammy for appearing on Gorillaz’ worldwide smash “Feel Good Inc.”, released a side project entitled First Serve, and released their entire catalog online for free in 2014 (in addition to a couple of mixtapes).
Today’s news finds the Long Island trio turning to Kickstarter for an assist funding their upcoming release. In typical De La fashion, it’s not any regular project but an album that will largely (entirely?) be composed of samples….of original material that they recorded as part of jam sessions that have taken place over the past three years.
Guest artists range from the sublime (David Byrne) to the expected (Damon Albarn) to the WTF? (2 Chainz). Pledge rewards include everything from copies of the LP, CD or digital album to a Skype session with De La. These campaigns really seem to be the new paradigm for legacy acts that are ignored by the major label system, and they deserve to be supported.
Check out De La’s Kickstarter campaign here, and check out some classic De La goodness below.