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 made a public commitment to work with the group and upload their music to streaming services. Now it is official.
“We made an agreement between ourselves and Reservoir to have our music released in 2021 – our catalog will be released this year, we work diligently with the good people at Reservoir, and we sat down with them and did it pretty quickly . ”” Said Dave “Trugoy” Jolicoeur. They found they weren’t “beating up” Tommy Boy’s founder, Tom Silverman. De La Soul’s early catalog was a long-running streaming holdout due to sample release issues and the nature of their contract.
In February 2019, the trio claimed that their former record label, Tommy Boy, planned to release the catalog on terms that would leave the label “roughly 90%” of the profits. According to Trugoy, Tommy Boy agreed to a 70 percent stake, but wanted 20 percent for a “phantom debt” that the group allegedly owed $ 2 million. The release on streaming services was planned for the 30th anniversary of their debut LP 3 Feet High & Rising, but was postponed.
