The arrival of De La Soul’s back catalogue on streaming services is a momentous moment for hip-hop. Their unique way of utilising samples and wordplay have made the group, which is from Long Island, New York, timeless. The debut solo album, 3 Feet High and Rising (1989), can be considered a turning point in the growth of hip-hop; it was an emotional experiment that lingers.
It’s a bittersweet moment for the group. At the Grammy Awards event in February, the trio was booked to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop but a day before the ceremony, David Jolicoeur (or Trugoy the Dove) said he was too ill to make it while Vincent Mason (aka Maseo) also had health problems, leaving Kelvin Mercer (known as Posdnuos) to appear alone, presenting the rapping part of Buddy from the 1989 album. A week after the ceremony, Jolicoeur died at age 54.
Tricky world of contracts for internet consumption
So, what took the group so long to release an album from 1989 on music streaming services? Complications, especially around tiny digital samples.
The album has 24 tracks, packed with digital samples of sound from existing records. Much of the early history of hip-hop did this — asking for permission later. Ultimately it led to a mess. Many of the samples were not cleared by the original owners. When the record arrived, it was fine but the music was not widely circulated to later generations. Then there were disputes between the band and their former label, Tommy Boy Records. This was around who would pay for the uncleared samples.
Tommy Boy was founded in 1981 and was the launchpad for influential rappers like Afrika Bambaataa and Queen Latifah.
Four years later, Warner Bros. acquired a 50 per cent interest in Tommy Boy. In 2002, Warner wasn’t happy with sales and Tommy Boy split off. Meanwhile, master recordings were somehow tied to Warner and in 2017 Tommy Boy reacquired its catalogue. But samples remained a tricky point.
Take the example of the track Eye Know. Producer Prince Paul and De La Soul made it feature bits of Steely Dan, Otis Redding, and Sly and the Family Stone. The Magic Number brings together sounds from Schoolhouse Rock!, snippets of Johnny Cash and more funk and disco.
De La Soul’s début album, 3 Feet High and Rising, came out, in 1989. The album sleeve features three musicians looking skeptically at the camera and they had an important role to play in the history of hip-hop
Streaming services don’t want legal wrangles. In 1991, the 1960s pop group, The Turtles, sued De La Soul for more than a million dollars because of a 12-second slow-down fragment. The case was settled but it had farreaching implications throughout the music industry.
Complications don’t end there. The group’s early contracts made things difficult. De La’s Posdnuos told Rolling Stone in 2014 that the language of the group’s early contracts complicated matters because most of it would apply to vinyl and cassettes. Even when the label was able to clear samples, it wasn’t suitable for the online world. Or, “new deals needed to be cut” for Internet consumption. It’s not just De La Soul. There are quite a few groups from pre-Internet days that face similar issues.
The final steps were not easy
In February 2014, the group released most of their back catalogue for free (without Warner’s authorisation) and fans were able to enjoy 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul Is Dead (1991), Buhloone Mind State (1993) and Stakes Is High (1996), besides dozens of rare remixes and B-sides. But the generosity was questioned as it appeared that the move could have been backed by pirated MP3s. Metadata for the distributed MP3s was not clean.
In June 2021, Tommy Boy was acquired for $100 million by Reservoir Media, a music publishingand media rights company. The task before it was massive. Every snippet of tape from the band’s six Tommy Boy albums —including Stakes Is High, Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump and AOI: Bionix — had to be checked and cleared. According to The New York Times, more than 200 appear across the entire catalogue and since each piece can be represented by multiplecopyright owners, the work involvedhundreds of contacts. To clear it, Deborah Mannis-Gardner was hired.
Posdnuos has said in a recent interview with The Guardian: “I understand that 3 Feet High and Rising was a groundbreaking album. It made people understand that you don’t have to follow certain rules to make music. But I hope people do take time to appreciate the other albums.”
Since not every element could be cleared, the band rerecorded “tiny elements” — drumbeats, horn hits, vinyl scratches. So, if you have some time this week and hiphop chills your soul, De La Soul’s albums would be worth listening to on something like Apple Music.