This past weekend, De La Soul fans around the world were left wishing they were in New York. Sure, you miss out on a fair bit of hip hop not living in The Big Apple, but none to the extremes of missing De La Soul’s listening party for their forthcoming album, and the Anonymous Nobody. To get on the party’s guest list, all you would have had to do was go back in time and contribute to the legendary group’s Kickstarter page to help fund the album.
Their crowdfunding campaign raised more than $600K and, as a thank you, Maseo, Posdnuos, and Dave (fka Trugoy) hosted an intimate event, playing a handful of tracks from the new LP as well as a couple of their classic hits.
All three members took some time to address the crowd, and Posdnuos reportedly expressed that this is his favourite album of theirs.
In an interview with Ambrosia For Heads, Dave said: “This record is something that we’d obviously planned on doing but it’s obvious that the route we took to begin working on it was propelled by popular demand. And I think that, for me, I can’t disappoint the fans. You gotta satisfy these people who said ‘I’m gonna give them my money. I love these guys.’ The amount of flattery makes you wanna not disappoint them or make yourself look bad. I’m supposed to be dope.”
In the same interview, Maseo said, “I think the fans can always look forward to the consistency of quality music that comes from De La Soul. I think that will always be something between us and them that’ll be a mutual understanding.”
Raising the money through Kickstarter gave De La complete creative and executive control so and the Anonymous Nobody is bound to be dope because of it; with the glowing testimonies the three have given there is little reason to doubt it. The album will also feature: 2 Chainz, Damon Albarn, David Byrne, Usher, Pete Rock, Roc Marciano, Estelle and Snoop Dogg, with production by Pete Rock along with DJ Premier.
Here is there track they released earlier this year with Nas. It won’t feature on the album but is a worthy appetizer.