You can find just about every piece of music on Spotify nowadays, so it’s always a surprise when you can’t track down a generally well-established name on the streaming service. For the past few years, that’s been the case for fans of hip hop stalwarts De La Soul, with the seminal rap group tied up in a major despute over their masters with former label Tommy Boy Records.
For years, the hip hop community and fans watched as one of the most consistently excellent and influential names of the 90s began losing connection to their own work, particularly from their first six albums from 3 Feet High and Rising to AOI: Bionix.
Just a few years ago, any purchases or revenue generated by De La Soul’s music would be split up with roughly 90% of profits going to Tommy Boy Records and only 10% to De La Soul.
Due to a debt Tommy Boy Records owed to Warner Bros., around half of De La Soul’s catalog was lost and not prepared for the streaming age, with the studio citing numerous issues as to why the projects weren’t allowed to be streamed, including sample clearance.
That long-winding case has seen a turn-around recently, finally falling in favour of De La Soul and their many fans thanks for Tommy Boy being purchased by New York-based music rights company Reservoir.
Late last year De La Soul took to Instagram Live to announce that the group had official acquired their masters back and will begin rolling out their full catalog onto Spotify, Apple Music and other digital streaming platforms from November.
Work started with debut 3 Feet High And Rising and the classic De La Soul Is Dead before then including 1993’s underrated Buhloone Mindstate and 1996’s Stakes Is High. All the De La Soul classics were being prepared for re-release on Spotify and Apple Music, which has now been confirmed for a March 3 release date.
That’s when the entire run from 1989 to 2001 will be released digitally via AOI records, which is a label belonging to De La Soul member Maseo. Physical releases will soon follow for those who still like collecting vinyl.
