Fans of De La Soul are rejoicing all around the world after the legendary trio announced it will be releasing its entire catalog for free on Valentine’s Day. The flood of music will mark the 25th anniversary of their debut album 3 Feet High and Rising next month, and will grant 25 hours for listeners to raid their vaults via the crew’s website.
Rolling Stone got the exclusive from the crew, chatting with Posdnuous who explained the impetus behind the generous giveaway. While it is a show a good faith for fans supporting the crew for a quarter of a century, there’s another reason behind the deluge as well.
From Rolling Stone:
“It’s about allowing our fans who have been looking and trying to get a hold of our music to have access to it,” De La Soul member Posdnuous tells Rolling Stone. “Its been too long where our fans haven’t had access to everything. This is our way of showing them how much we love them.”
The same things that made 3 Feet High and other De La albums so influential — its creative, if not fully licensed, use of a myriad of samples — has also prevented the group’s work from appearing on many digital platforms. “It’s been a trying journey,” admits Posdnuous. “We’ve been blessed to be in the Library of Congress, but we can’t even have our music on iTunes. We’ve been working very hard to get that solved.”
There will also be music for retail coming soon as well, especially for those waiting for You’re Welcome, the group’s first release since 2004’s The Grind Date.
Plug Won says they hope to have the album done by the summer, and the delay for its release is simply because the guys are their own worst critics. They’ve reworked the album, and Pos hinted at another new project but kept mum on the details.
Next month, De La Soul will release the Preemium Soul on the Rocks EP, which features three tracks from DJ Premier and the same number of beats from Pete Rock.
The promise of new music is great, but getting free music on Valentine’s Day is pretty sweet, don’t you think? See what we did there?
Be sure to hit up De La Soul’s website here at 11:00 a.m. EST Friday (February 14). The music will be available for 25 hours until Saturday (February 15) at noon.
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Photo: Instagram/Instagram.com/delasolarvision
