I’ve been waiting so long, a few months longer won’t hurt. I already have most of them on CD, and for spotify purposes had ripped them to my hard drive (or taken advantage of the time they made the whole backcatalog available for free download) years ago anyway.
But this is still brilliant news, because while a lot of people remember Three Feet High And Rising as the classic album it most definitely is, not enough people get to hear the rest of their work today, and there are an awful lot of ‘classic hip hop’ or ‘best MCs ever’ playlists which are going to need updating come March 3. It took me a little while to get there, but I think I now believe that Buhloone Mind State is their best work, and now it will be easier for others to see if they agree.
So while we’re waiting for that date to roll around, I have a couple reocmmendations. First off, De La aren’t completely invisible on Spotify. Here they are on a bunch of other people’s tracks, for instance:
…And I’ll also point people towards the What Had Happened Was podcast, which is well worth a listen anyway. In season one, Open Mike Eagle talks through the career of Prince Paul, which of course features the first three of those classic De La records, and in season three he has similar conversations with Dante Ross, who was also there at the start. Great stories from both amazing people.
