De La Soul’s Maseo opens up about the group’s conversations with JAY-Z, which were instrumental in getting their music to streaming.
After long delays and legal battles with former label Tommy Boy Records, De La Soul’s first six albums, including classics like 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul Is Dead and Buhloone Mindstate, will finally be released on March 2023. Released on the streaming platform in October.
In a new interview with TIDAL, Maseo talks about the initial boycott that played a key role in getting their catalog on DSP after expressing their dissatisfaction with financial cuts.
“It’s crazy, we thought Tommy Boy was going to go all out – and let me not just say Tommy Boy, so I’m going to say Tom Silverman, the owner – it looks like he’s going to go all out and rail us,” he began .
“We were conflicted: Should we do this for the fans or suffer another financial loss? At this stage in our lives, the three of us are trying to figure it out.
“It’s like, ‘We can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep doing this for the sake of the greater good or the culture. When is the culture going to throw it back?
Maceo went on to recall Della’s phone call with JAY-Z, calling it “holy.”
“Jay said, ‘Listen, we just want to be on the right side of history. This is our business.’ Hearing that we were in conflict with it, he was like, ‘Man, what do you want to do?’ The call was Holy. This call is historic.
“That put a stamp on the boycott and no doubt just sparked the wildfire of Spotify not doing this. Apple [Music] did not do it. It changed Della’s trajectory at the moment.
How Deborah Mannis-Gardner Helped Clean Up De La Soul’s Streaming Directory
De La Soul previously thanked JAY-Z for refusing to play their work on TIDAL back in 2019.
“Dear fans, just got off the phone with TIDAL,” the group wrote on Instagram at the time. “In order to support this artist, TIDAL has decided not to play our catalog until this matter is resolved. Thank you TIDAL…thank you JAY.
De La Soul’s return to streaming has been a huge success. According to Billboard, their music had 12.5 million on-demand streams in the U.S. and sold 28,000 albums (including digital downloads and physical copies) in its first week.
