Following years of legal battles, Talib Kweli revealed that De La Soul has finally secured the rights to their master recordings. Talib Kweli confirmed the news with an Instagram post on Saturday. In the post Talib Kweli says, “After years of being taken advantage by the recording industry in the worst possible ways, De La Soul now owns all the rights to their masters and is in full control of the amazing music they have created.”
The news comes barely two months after Reservoir Media paid approximately $100 million for the famous hip-hop label Tommy Boy Music. In doing so, Reservoir acquired the rights to six of De La Soul’s albums, including a few of their classic albums like “3 Feet High and Rising,” “De La Soul Is Dead,” and “Buhloone Mindstate.”.
Much Of De La Souls discography is still unavailable to stream
Streaming services do not yet have De La Soul’s earlier and most notable albums available. The only two De La albums now available to stream are 2004’s “The Grind Date”, released under Sanctuary Records, and their crowdfunded 2016 album “And The Anonymous Nobody”.
Following the acquisition, a Reservoir representative stated that the new label’s ownership plans to make the De La Soul collection available for streaming. “We have already reached out to De La Soul and will work together to bring the catalog and the music back to the fans,” Reservoir told Variety in June.
Tommy Boy previously sought to put more of De La Soul’s catalog on streaming, but their efforts failed. De La Soul claims the deal fell apart because the contract had “unbalanced, unfair terms.” “Tommy Boy says they are ‘not in the business of giving artists back their Masters… We realize, there is a process in reclaiming ownership but we do not trust Tommy Boy in this process after so many years of disappointment” the trio said back in 2019. With the masters finally back in the hands of De La Soul, it’s likely that we can expect to see some of their classic albums on streaming services.
Written by John Galietta
Instagram: @jgalietta17
Twitter: @jgalietta17
