Part of the legendary American hip-hop group’s discography had never been released on streaming platforms due to copyright issues.
The music of hip-hop pioneers, the group De La Soul, finally lands on streaming platforms. Like announced on Tuesday of the American rap group, formed in 1988, the first albums of his discography will be available online from March 3rd.
If De La Soul lovers have had to wait years to listen to their favorite band online, it’s in part because the use of samples – pre-existing audio clips used to compose new music – has posed copyright issues. .
In an interview with BBC in 2016, De La Soul member Kelvin Mercer aka Posdnuos explained that under 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 these samples .
“Our contracts on our first albums specifically said ‘vinyl and tape. The wording wasn’t vague enough to lend itself to new music technologies,'” he told the BBC.
The redemption of their discography
But in 2021, De La Soul’s catalog owned by Tommy Boy Records was acquired by Reservoir Media. As a result of this acquisition, the company announced the upcoming distribution of De La Soul’s entire discography on streaming services through the Chrysalis Records label.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_dczSc7VeQ
Coinciding 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 De La Soul is dead (1991), Mental state of Buhloone (1993), The stakes are high (1996), Official Art Intelligence: Mosaic Thump (2000) et Official art intelligence: Bionix (2001).
Until then, only the group’s three most recent albums were available on Spotify: The date of the grind released in 2004, First service in 2012 and And the anonymous Nobody… released in 2016.
