De La Soul’s discography is finally coming to streaming services this year, the trio announced on Instagram today.
After Tommy Boy was acquired by Reservoir Media earlier this year, the label’s new
owners publicly pledged to work with the group and get their music uploaded to streaming services. Now it’s been made official.
“We have come to a deal between ourselves and Reservoir to release our music in 2021—our catalog will be released this year,
we are working diligently with the good folks at Reservoir, and we sat down with them
and got it done pretty quickly actually,” Dave “Trugoy” Jolicoeur said.
They noted they weren’t “bashing” Tommy Boy founder Tom Silverman. De La Soul’s
early catalog was a longtime streaming holdout due to sample clearance issues and the nature of their contract.
In Februrary 2019, the trio claimed that their former record label Tommy Boy was
planning to release the catalog on terms that left “roughly 90%” of profits to the label.
According to Trugoy, Tommy Boy agreed on a 70 percent share but wanted 20 percent toward a “phantom debt” the group allegedly owed of $2 million.
The release to streaming services at the time was planned to coincide with the 30th anniversary of their debut LP 3 Feet High & Rising, but was postponed.
