DE LA SOUL

De La Soul Have Finally Gained Control Of Their Masters, According To Talib Kweli

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Legendary hip-hop trio De La Soul — Posdnuos, Trugoy and Maseo — have been locked in a battle with Tommy Boy Music for years to regain control of their masters. Now, according to Talib Kweli, it’s mission accomplished for The Plugs.

“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,” Kweli wrote in an Instagram post over the weekend, writing that Maseo had confirmed the news. “Let’s salute Plugs 1, 2 and 3 for sticking to their guns and showing us that we can all beat the system if we come together as a community. Let’s hear it for black ownership of black art! Congratulations fellas.”

The news may not come as a huge surprise, since just two months ago, Reservoir Media acquired the Tommy Boy for close to $100 million. They also gained ownership of Tommy Boy’s catalog, which includes six De La Soul albums: 3 Feet High And Rising (1989), De La Soul Is Dead (1991), and Buhloone Mindstate (1993), Stakes Is High (1996), Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump (2000), and AOI: Bionix (2001). A spokesperson for Reservoir also confirmed that the new label ownership would mean that De La Soul’s catalog would at last come to streaming platforms. “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,” a Reservoir rep told Variety.

As Uproxx’s Aaron Williams pointed out recently, the only two De La albums currently available to stream are 2004’s The Grind Date, released under Sanctuary Records, and their crowdfunded 2016 album And The Anonymous Nobody.

De La Soul’s Catalog Could Be Coming To Streaming Services After All

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Streaming has rapidly become the dominant way many people consume music over the course of the past half-decade but one of the most storied catalogs in all of hip-hop has been absent from DSPs as a result of a decades-long copyright battle. However, that may be changing soon as a result of the recent sale of Tommy Boy Music to music rights company Reservoir for $100 million, which prompted the question of what would happen to the music of De La Soul. Variety reports that Reservoir has already reached out to the iconic rap trio to “bring the catalog and the music back to the fans.”

The status of De La Soul’s catalog on DSPs has been uncertain since 2019, when Questlove led a call to boycott Tommy Boy’s proposed streaming plan over the unfavorable splits the band would have received. After Jay-Z and Tidal made the decision not to host the catalog, Tommy Boy’s streaming plan fell through, once again leaving the future of the catalog in limbo. To date, the only two De La albums available to stream are 2004’s The Grind Date, released under Sanctuary Records, and their crowdfunded 2016 album And The Anonymous Nobody. That leaves six albums, including their groundbreaking debut 3 Feet High And Rising, out of rotation.

For younger fans who might not know the impact the band has had on rap culture, this is kind of a travesty. However, as a testament to De La’s profound importance to the pop culture landscape — and a possible introduction to them for those younger fans — the band was recently featured in an episode of Teen Titans Go! on Cartoon Network, using their musical powers to defeat an animated monster octopus. Maybe one day soon, those Teen Titans fans will be able to check out “Me Myself & I” and “Stakes Is High” on Spotify.

De La Soul Appeared On ‘Teen Titans Go!’ To Fight An Animated Octopus Trying To Steal Their Music

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A recent episode of Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans Go! featured a familiar hip-hop group: De La Soul. The trio composed of Posdnous, Trugoy, and Maseo appeared as their animated selves to fight a battle that most musicians could relate to: The group was tasked with taking down a giant octopus monster who was trying to steal their music. While they accomplished the mission, they didn’t do it without help from the Teen Titans who put their talents to use in order to defeat the monster, but not without freaking out over meeting the legendary rap group.

In some ways the episode is a cartoon representation of the group’s legal battle with their former label, Tommy Boy Records, over the ownership of their catalog prior to their 2004 album, The Grind Date, which includes their classic debut, 3 Feet High And Rising. To this day, the group’s back catalog has not been released on streaming stores of digital media stores. Prior to 2017, their back catalog was owned by Warner Records, but that year, Tommy Boy took over control.

Two years later, De La Soul said their catalog would soon appear on digital services but their dissatisfaction with receiving just 10% of the revenue sparked a renegotiation, one the group said ended in August 2019. However, last February Posdnuos said Tommy Boy “sort of came back to the table, we are looking to sort of get it going.”

You can watch a clip from the episode above.