“When did you fall in love with hip hop?” If it happened to be while listening to Me, Myself, and I, by De La Soul, Circa 1989, you’re in luck! Just one day before Hip Hop’s 48th birthday, (August 11) the late 80’s group took to social media to make an announcement. They announced that their music will make it to streaming services before the end of this year. This comes after a long battle with their previous record label Tommy Boy over masters and profit percentages. This year, record label Reservoir acquired Tommy Boy for $100 million and vowed to bring De La Soul’s music to streaming services.
Reservoir said in a statement to Variety, “We have already reached out to De La Soul and will work together to the bring the catalog and the music back to the fans.” Seemingly the label has kept its word! Not only will music be made available to stream but, this past weekend rapper Talib Kweli took to Instagram to congratulate the group on owning their masters. Kweli posted a clip from when the music group was featured on the Teen Titans Go! show with the caption, “After years of being taken advantage by the recording industry in the worst possible ways, De La Soul now owns all the rights to their masters and is in full control of the amazing music they have created.”
De La Soul is made up of three members, Jolicoeur, Kelvin “Posdnuos” Mercer and Vincent “Maseo” Mason. They have recorded eight studio albums but only their final two, The Grind Date and And the Anonymous Nobody are available to stream currently. Their former label, Tommy Boy attempted to make the rest of their catalog available to stream back in 2019 offering the group only 10% profit. This is a huge victory for De La Soul and for hip hop, they finally have control of their records!
The group didn’t offer an exact date for when the music will be available but before the end of the year is music to all of their fans ears! Check out the interview below that the group did back in 2019 with Sway in The Morning explaining their label drama.
