De La Soul's Classic Albums Are Finally Coming To Streaming Services

On March 3rd, De La Soul's classic records will land on streaming services.

Six albums from the period 1989 through to 2001 will be released via band member Maseo's label AOI alongside Reservoir and the distribution wing of Chrysalis.

3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul Is Dead, Buhloone Mindstate, Stakes Is High, Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump, and AOI: Bionix will all land on streaming services. 

De La Soul's back catalogue has been offline due to continuous legal issues, including a range of uncleared samples. In 2014 the band made their music for free for a brief period of time.

In June 2021, fans were excited following the news that Reservoir Media had acquired De La Soul's first label, Tommy Boy. A few months later, the group took to Instagram live to announce that they would attempt to have their music on streaming platforms by the end of 2022.

Speaking to the BBC in 2016, Posdnuos spoke on the delay of their music not being on the back catalogue. 

"Our contracts on those early albums said specifically 'vinyl and cassette'. "So once the whole age of digital music came into play, new deals needed to be cut for those entire albums."

He stated that their record label at the time, Warner Bros, "don't want to deal with it."

"They're like, 'Is it worth it?' They've got to go through almost every song with a fine comb to make sure this sample or that sample was cleared.