De La Soul wordsmith Posdnuos has been in the game for over three decades now, and he’s in possession of some priceless artifacts as a result of living through the many phases of Hip Hop’s evolution.
On Sunday (July 2), the New York MC took to Instagram to share a snippet of a demo recording for the 27-year anniversary of Stakes Is High. In the video, Pos points the camera to a cassette tape of the album as an unreleased cut of its title track plays in the background. This is a version of the song that was made before the late, great J Dilla was brought on to work on it. It features a sample of The Heath Brothers “Smilin Billy Suite,” popularized in Nas’s “One Love.”
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He captioned the clip: “27 years ago 3 Long Island men gave you the Stakes is High and every one of those 27 years @wearedelasoul have been blessed with listeners letting us know what this album means to their lives.”
He added: “Thank you ! Thank you Jay Dee for “Dilla-nizing” our original version of the title track to make it into a Hip Hop sermon! #delasoul #thankyoudave #dilla #stakesishigh #27 #demo”
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Earlier this month, Pos paid tribute to another departed Hip Hop icon: his fellow De La Soul MC, Trugoy the Dove, who passed away in February.
The 53-year-old rapper was featured on the title track of Statik Selektah’s latest album, Round Trip. On “Round Trip (For Dave),” Plug 1 shares how he’s been feeling about losing his friend while assuring fans that his death doesn’t mean it’s the end of the group.
“My brother left on his return ticket so the pieces of our heart/ I guess some were left to picket/ His round trip journey returned him to the source/ So most would think we been derailed off the course/ But, no matter how sad, the fire in our eyes can’t be doused out/ But tears, 30-plus years will back us,” Posdnuos raps over Statik’s emotion-driven piano loop production.
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Trugoy the Dove, who was one third of De La Soul, died at the age of 54. The Haitian-American rapper (real name David Jolicoeur) had seen his health impacted by congestive heart failure in recent years. He first revealed the news to fans in a clip at the beginning of the 2017 video for “Royalty Capes.”
In 2020, Trugoy, who ran the official De La Soul account on IG, was much more open about his illness, appearing on IG live with groupmates Posdnuos and Maseo during a brief hospitalization, and posting a thank you message to fans once he was released.
