De La Soul’s early albums finally coming to streaming service in March

03.01.2023 - 19:01 / completemusicupdate.com

De La Soul have announced that their first six albums will arrive on streaming services for the first time in March this year. This follows the acquisition of their former label Tommy Boy Music by Reservoir Media last year.The legendary hip hop trio went public in 2019 about their negotiations with Tommy Boy and its founder Tom Silverman regarding getting the De La Soul albums released by the label streaming.

They said that they could not accept the terms being offered by Silverman and that they were therefore ending all talks with the label.This impasse continued, meaning that the group’s classic albums remained unavailable digitally. However, in June last year Tommy Boy was acquired by Reservoir, paving the way for negotiations to recommence.In August, rapper Talib Kweli posted an update saying that he’d been told by De La Soul member Maseo that the group were now in control of their masters, after which Reservoir confirmed that it was working to bring their albums to streaming services.Since then, things had gone quiet, with no sign of those albums being made available.

However, it was confirmed today that we are now three months away from finally being able to stream them.“We can’t believe this day is finally here”, say De La Soul in a statement. “We are excited to be able to share our music with fans, old and new.

The Reservoir team have been great partners in this entire process. We’re grateful that our relationship with them all has enabled this to happen”.Working with De La Soul’s own AOI label, Reservoir’s Chrysalis division will distribute the records: 1989’s ‘3 Feet High And Rising’, 1991’s ‘De La Soul Is Dead, 1993’s ‘Buhloone Mindstate’, 1996’s ‘Stakes Is High’, 2000’s ‘Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic