The music of hip-hop pioneers, the De La Soul group, will finally appear on streaming platforms. As the American rap group formed in 1988 announced on Tuesday, the first albums of their discography will be available online starting March 3.
If De La Soul fans had to wait years to be able to listen to their favorite band online, it was partly because of the use of samples, pre-existing sound clips used to compose new music, which raised legal issues at the level of Copyright.
In an interview at the BBC In 2016, De La Soul member Kelvin Mercer, also known as Posdnuos, explained that in his contract with his label at the time, Tommy Boy, the band was only allowed to release their music on “vinyl and cassette” due to to these samples.
“Our contracts on our early albums specifically said ‘vinyl and tape’. The wording was not vague enough to lend itself to new music technologies,” he told the BBC.
Redemption of his discography
But in 2021, Reservoir Media acquired De La Soul’s catalog owned by Tommy Boy Records. Following this acquisition, the company announced the upcoming distribution of De La Soul’s entire discography on streaming services through the Chrysalis Records label.
To coincide with the 34th anniversary of the release of De La Soul’s iconic debut album. 3 feet tall and risingthe rap group will make this album available on streaming platforms on March 3, as well as From Soul Is Dead (1991), Buhloone’s state of mind (1993), The stakes are high (nineteen ninety six), Official Art Intelligence: Mosaic Thump (2000) and Official Intelligence Art: Bionix (2001).
Until then, only the band’s three most recent albums were present on Spotify: The date of grinding released in 2004, first serve in 2012 and And The Anonymous Nobody… released in 2016.
Source: BFM TV
