De La Soul is one of the most important rap groups in the history of Hip-Hop. When they debuted in the 1980s, many other rappers were acting phony and embellishing their lives of crime. Conversely, the Long Island trio kept it real by rapping about everyday life and not fantasy. Unfortunately, many took their realness and honesty for a weakness, dubbing them 'positive' rappers; a label that followed them their entire careers. While many other rap groups have come and gone -- formed and broken up -- De La Soul is still here. In fact, they are planning a new album called "And the Anonymous Nobody".
Rather than go the traditional route of signing with a record label, the group has turned to Kickstarter to fund the project. Yes, these aging rappers have turned to the Internet, crowd-funding and social media, to make the album happen and it has been a huge success. They met their goal of $110,000 in one day, and as of today, are over $500,000 with close to 10,000 backers. In other words, you can teach an old dog new tricks, and sometimes the old dogs outfox the young pups. I talked with David Jude Jolicoeur, aka, Dave, aka Trugoy, from De La Soul about the campaign.
Brian Fagioli: Your last album, “The Grind Date”, was released in 2004. Why has there been such a long delay between it and your upcoming release?
Dave: I hate to make it sound boring, but we were just chilling. We don't force anything. We've been blessed to earn a living touring, something that we love to do, without any new albums out. We're always on the road. It had more to do with, when the time came, we would concentrate on putting the record out. We did a couple singles here and there, we did a mix-tape or two, but for the most part, the whole idea of releasing a full album just wasn't present; we didn't feel it. There was no music really, that we felt motivated, like this was the beginning of a project or anything.
Brian: So you guys feel very motivated in 2015 to get this new album going?
Dave: Absolutely. I think we found something. We found something amazing. We stumbled on an interesting approach to sampling, and we feel comfortable and confident about it. Now we're just like, OK, let's do this now. Here's something we can actually latch onto and sink our teeth into.
Brian: Whose idea was it to go the crowd-funding route? Was it you guys? A manager? How did you discover using Kickstarter in order to get the funding for this album?
Dave: It was something that a friend suggested. They were like "what do you guys plan on doing?", and we said were thinking of maybe getting somebody to invest or possibly signing to a label of some sort, or a distribution deal and doing it independently. They mentioned Kickstarter, and we didn't just say that is what we were going to do. We investigated it and looked at different projects that were happening there, and what's the whole crowd-funding thing was about, what Kickstater was about. We kept that to the side, as an option, and then looked around. We were offered deals here and there, people approached us about doing distribution deals and record deals. It just didn't feel good, it just didn't feel right. It felt like we were going back to our old Tommy Boy days, and we just felt like, let's give this a shot, let's see what it's about, see if we can do this. Sitting down, talking about it, and really analyzing how it's beneficial to us, it was perfect. It was like, let's do it.
Brian: Are you surprised by the success? I mean, you guys set a goal and you blew right through it in the first day. Are you guys surprised by that or did you expect that?
Dave: We're surprised by how fast it happened. I felt like we could accomplish our goal. I felt like we would definitely reach it. How fast it happened and how it surpassed our goal, is an amazing, overwhelming, surprising feeling. It's nice to know that your fans are still here, they exist, they believe in us, which is the, like, bigger part of it all. They believe in us, they haven't even heard a tune yet, they haven't heard anything. They believe and trust in our artistry and how we're going to work and make this happen. It feels good.
Brian: I read online that the album title will be "And the Anonymous Nobody". What does that mean?
Dave: It's an introduction to that individual, and so many of us who exist, the people who don't walk around looking for a pat on the back or a spotlight. The individuals who put themselves in front of adversity and try to overcome it -- not only for the benefit of themselves, but for the benefit of everyone or whoever is in the room if that's the case. The individual who might not be recognized, but is there doing the job daily to keep the machine running or things moving smoothly. That person who selflessly stands up for something for the better of us all. That's what it's really about. I think this project kind of encompasses that. We have a lot of musicians and a lot of people behind the curtain making this whole thing run and I think people are doing it because they want to see something succeed and they want to see a change or they want to see the opportunity for new soil to be laid and something new grows. I think that's what "And the Anonymous Nobody" is about. That individual who isn't looking to be recognized, but is definitely looking to be involved and make something happen or bring forth some change.
Brian: Speaking on that, you have a lot individuals that are crowd-funding this project. You have a lot of fans contributing. Do you feel any greater responsibility to produce something spectacular? By the fact that essentially, your fans are putting up the money up front, do you feel any extra pressure to release something dope beyond belief? That this really has to be an amazing record?
Dave: No pressure at all. I think this is why we also came to Kickstarter, because we felt like we had something phenomenal. I don't know if everybody is going to get into this record, and I say that because, I think this record is beyond what's happening today. I think a lot of listening ears are just so focused on the sound of today, and we have a little bit of that, but this project kind of like, explores so much in music. And I think to the effect that we have something phenomenal is why we also came to Kickstarter, because I think that's what people, who are in that community, are looking for -- something amazing. I want to invest in something that I'm going to be wowed by. That's the confidence we have. People are going to really appreciate this. It's interesting, not only the way we recorded the record, but the songs as well.
Brian: Spotify. Streaming music services. Right now, a lot of your albums aren't there. I'm assuming that's maybe a Tommy Boy Records issue. Will this new album be available to people with Spotify subscriptions, or Google Play Music or Jay-Z's new Tidal service? Will the new album be available there?
Dave: Absolutely. We are in complete ownership of all of this music that we have and obviously we will release on those platforms. It's difficult not having our past catalog, because it's just straight contractual issues, with Warner and whoever else is involved; publishers and so on and so forth. Everything from this point we definitely want to have on all of those platforms.
If you are interested in participating in the Kickstarter campaign, you can do so here. There are still many rewards available -- including some cool USB flash drives -- and 6 days left to go. In the interim, even though the album will not release until September, you can check out a new non-album track "God It" featuring Nas below.
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