The De La Soul and Tommy Boy Records saga is at an end — at least for now.
After the legendary Hip Hop trio revealed both parties were unable to come to an agreement earlier this week, Pos, Dave and Maseo have shared another Instagram post thanking their fans and explaining why streaming anything De La under the Tommy Boy umbrella is detrimental to them.
“Thank you friends and fans,” the caption begins. “Your kind positive words mean a lot and your support goes even farther. As frustrating as it is and as crazy as it may sound, your act of NOT purchasing or streaming anything musically De La Soul, falling under the Tommy Boy banner (until further notice) helps us immensely and can possibly aid others experiencing these similar woes.
“Thank you @nas …thanks Pete @bittenbender and @massappeal for your committed support and promising business relationship. We’re in the stew working on new music and will continue to celebrate this wonderful journey we’ve been blessed to experience. Thank you @djpremier and @realpeterock for your diligence and support.”
Elsewhere in the caption, De La revealed a special 30-year commemorative release in on the way and issued an ominous warning for future or current Tommy Boy artists.
“30 years is a helluva milestone,” they continued. “We’re so proud to be able to share our celebration with you all. Look out for our 30 year commemorative release coming very soon #delacoinz Your support will directly fund future endeavors and projects.
“Just to put the final nail in the coffin.We wish Tommy Boy no ills but we do call for a boycott of anything bearing the name. Karma will do the rest… that old enslaved record label contract dinosaur is long dead and gone, but unfortunately still stinks. For those who may not have had a similar experience with Tommy Boy, be thankful, be wise and stay alert… the devil does not rest and is never satisfied.”
The group ended their caption with a list of music they consider safe to stream, including 2016’s And The Anonymous Nobody and the recent DJ Shadow collaboration “Rocket Fuel.”
“Seek and check out these De La Soul releases: Impossible Mission mixtape #grinddate De La Soul: Are You In? Nike + Original run #smelltheda.i.s.y.#andtheanonymousnobody. Tom Misch feat. De La Soul ‘It Runs Through Me’ @djshadow feat. De La Soul ‘Rocket Fuel.'”
De La and Tommy Boy’s negotiations started months ago. In an interview with HipHopDX, Maseo admitted the whole situation has caused “a lot of pain and suffering.”
But as their most recent post states in all caps: “POSITIVE ENERGY AND CONSTRUCTIVE ATTITUDE WILL YIELD SO MUCH REWARD.”
Im going to go stream all of them for the first time in my life and leave it on repeat
I’m streaming on your momma’s ass
I’m glad you got that ass while I fill his momma mouth with 6oz of that oooey gooey. High five time!
Whoop,There it is !!!
Is tag team also crying about how they signed a shitty record deal and are t relevant anymore? LOL
Their relevant enough for you to see “De la soul ” in title then go ahead and click lol
The comment said “TAg Team”, moron. That’s the whoop there it is joke. Maybe learn how to read, fucktard?
I’m going to make a playlist of all of their first 6 albums on Spotify, and I’ll leave them on repeat on my CPU all day while I’m at work etc. these clowns signed a deal to get distribution, have their music distributed etc, now they want to remix on their deal. Ask Jay-Z to BUY your masters back for you, or get the money together yourselves and do it. Thanks to that “terrible deal” you signed of your own free will, you’re all millionaires, and get paid 20K+ a show. I’m sick of all this whiney, race baiting bullshit. Grow up, jackasses. I’m seriously going to hit social media and tell everyone, fan or not, to stream all 6 first albums as much as possible. I hope Tommy Boy sues these morons. The record label was sued for MILLIONS for their first album. It was full of samples they didn’t even think of clearing. They’re not mentioning that anywhere, are they?
First this must be a privileged white boy saying all this crap. Cause if it’s a black man, then shame on you. Check this out. You need to check your self on that race issue. Maybe we should let cop arrest you and then almost end your life and let you get the feeling of being black . Second hip hop is not white music. You should be banned from it. You do nothing for our music except try to pimp and steal it. Second. You don’t know dela’s financial status. So keep your don’t need you in what we created and you just want to steal it butt out if hip hip
Young brother I know y’all hate hearing old heads talk about “back in the 90’s. Real talk we were not going to put up with that race bs. I’m glad that you addressed the lil punk. Eventually y’all are really going to start dropping some “act rights” on them. I hope that you all are getting tired of that bs. Whoop that ass and it’ll stop….and don’t record it. As a matter of fact leave your phones at home so they can’t put you there by gps. Brother I’m sending you the power of the beatdown gods. Keeping checking these mfs
Nice one deuce. I guess you live in a world where a black man doesn’t get thrown in prison for assaulting someone. Are you in the Klan or something? I’m not talking Wu. Way to hold the black man back.
Super productive work for race relations right there.
Super productive work for race relations right there
Wow. You’re a racist. Congrats. Thanks for helping get Trump elected. LOL. These dudes signed a deal, and 30 years later are complaining about it. You have no idea what race that guy is, and threw out 2 options. No wonder prisons are full of ignorant young men. Your mentality explains a lot.
I already bought these albums in the 90s, sorry de la, I’m streaming them.
If you bought them why stream them?
tell him again dum ass
Whatever mud hut you live in, Drake fan, in some god awful country, probably still ha CD players, Casey decks etc. CIVILIZED humans stream 99% of the music they listen to while driving or at home. I’m guessing you’re fugly baby is probably retarded too. Nice to see you back commenting. Fuckboy.
Bought me on vinyl, even if I bought cd’s how would I play them now when I’m in the car?
Bought me on vinyl, even if they were cds, how would I play them in the car. Point is I already gave them my money, and have also seen them live a couple times.
Good for De La. Let’s all try to help them get back their masters. Maybe a Gofundme?
I like the way there are a couple of Dindus in the comments talking about RACISM and banging someone’s mom because people believe that’s De La, like anyone else in civilization, should honor a legally binding contract they signed.
No they shouldn`t honor a slave contract. BTW contracts usually gets renegogiated all the time.
Just Me, Myself & My Ipod
I never was a fan, but Tommy Boy made these guys stars. Without the label they would be what they seem like: average, mid-class fathers from the local pub.
labels dont make rappers dum ass
I sold my motorcycle 25 years ago. I’m not happy with the deal I made back then, so they should just hand me back my motorcycle for free, in pristine condition, or they should AT LEAST pay me for whoever is riding around on it now. Right?
Your comment makes no sense dude.. This is about percentages for the digital release. Not like selling a bike at all. And this is about future earnings not past.
It makes total sense. I SOLD something. Now I want it back, after agreeing to terms of the sale. If De La’s digital sales weren’t somehow encompassed in the original deal, they wouldn’t be crying like little bitches right now wanting a hand out. Their music was recorded in a studio. It was mixed down, engineered, mastered, promoted and distributed. All with money De La didn’t have at the time. Tommy Boy paid hundreds of thousands to have that happen. The equivalent of millions in today’s money. So it is an ENTIRELY valid point. In 1988 (when they signed to Tommy Boy) the Internet didn’t even exist yet. Tommy Boy obviously covered all of their bases with the contract. De La should do an ENTIRE new album with 100% Prince Paul production and put that shit in the past. This just seems to be a whiney ass cop out. They’re all millionaires, apparently greedy millionares who want to go back on their word. It was a simple transaction. They flat out sold ALL 6 albums in any form. Now they want it back, for free.
In my opinion, de la soul made tommy boy in the hip hop game. Tommy boy needs to ante that doe.
I see it from both sides. Hopefully De La and negotiate some 50/50 ownership share or buy their catalogue.
The De La Soul and Tommy Boy Records saga is at an end — at least for now….then the article goes on to show this isn’t true at all
Funny how NO ONE ELSE on Tommy Boy
I mean NO ONE has ever said anything about royalties EVER! Except these 3 lame cats.
If there so dope why not just go make another hit record and get paid instead of sccrounging over pennies that trickle down from music streams. Pathetic ass people always want more then the deserve
How About Now you are wrong. NORE is waiting out of respect to De La, so that he doesn’t interfere with their situation. There are others, but they respect the shit out of De La and don’t want to mess up the negotations.
it would be interesting to see the age of those commenting on this post (the honest and accurate age). I think it would be worth exploring, as I suspect that many of the comments that are unsympathetic to the argument that De La Soul probably didn’t grow up with their music, and thus do not feel any allegiance to them and probably don’t understand how screwed up the contracts were back in the day for the hip hop artist. Rappers were shitted on and taken advantage of in the earlier stages of hip hop. The gatekeepers (the larger and established record companies) were the only way that you could get your product out. The ability for someone to put their music out as quickly, artist controlled, and artist favored that exists today didn’t for groups like De La. That is why the contract needs to be renegotiated. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And for the cats that says that they just need to put out new music…they haven’t been sitting on their asses. They have put out new music, but they hate seeing that the classic material that is their blood, sweat, and tears is still paying them at what amounts to be slave wages. Yes, it was a contract, but that contract was exploitative of a 18 year old kids.
Right and if Tommy Boy never signed them when they were 18 then where would they be now? Tommy Boy gave them a voice, a home, money to record and so on they took a chance investing “their” money into some nobodys the put oit multiple albums with Tommy Boy you would think if they got jerked on the first album then maybe they would stop making records but they didnt. If Tommy Boy was ran and owned by a black man ya’ll would shut the fuccck up real quick but now the “white man” is jerkin the “poor black kids” that didnt know any better gtfoh! Millions of people would have done anything for a record deal with Tommy Boy back in the day so you sound like an idiot
How About Now, when you get emotional at the end of your arguement, you sound like you are taking this personally and not able to converse without attacking. Take a step back for the sake of rational conversation. __________________ Tommy Boy new that locking any arrest into a 10 album deal was exploiting them. 10 ALBUMS. Anything beyond 3 albums is exploitation. I do understand the initial risk, from a business perspective, of taking on and promoting a new group. The initial investment is often not recouped on the first album, but on the 2nd and 3rd albums it does (there is not nearly the amount of capital that is needed for promotion as De La, or any new group would already be familiar). But, again, we are talking about a 10 album contract. Tommy Boy was seasoned and wrote a contract that was completely lopsided and only favored one party, and locked a group into what was a lifetime contract (the life expectancy for a hip hop group was 5 years at best at that time). Run-DMC was the the most successful group, and maybe Beastie Boys, and they were only in the game for 4 or 5 years.