The first album in over a decade from legendary ’90s hip-hop outfit De La Soul will feature a star-studded list of guest stars, including David Byrne, Jill Scott, Pete Rock, Damon Albarn, Usher, and Snoop Dogg, according to a recent interview with Rolling Stone.
Called And the Anonymous Nobody, the new record was completely financed through a Kickstarter campaign, with the idea that the group would be able to do just about anything they want.
One of the most-anticipated albums of the year, the new record from Long Island rappers Posdnuos, Dave, and Maseo, who are all now in their 40s, will be an eclectic mix of songs that the trio say breaks all the rules.
“We couldn’t do that on a regular label,” Posdnous says about a particularly out-there track on the new record. ” How you gonna present them with a song like this? They may think it’s beautiful but then it’s like, ‘Okay, so, there’s no chorus. For maybe the first three minutes of the record, you’re nowhere to be found.’”
The album will be one of the first crowd-funded releases ever from a major hip-hop artist. When the trio launched their Kickstarted campaign last March, the original goal of $110,000 was met within ten hours, and ended with a total of $600,000 in contributions. That extra dough likely went to help fund the appearances of so many special guests.
Known for their out-there take on what is thought by many to be a somewhat basic genre, the group even relied on some famous outside ears to help mix the album.
“We even at one point let Nas hear a bunch of tracks,” Posdnous says, “And it was just dope how he was like, ‘Yo man, this is like some avant-garde shit.'”
De La Soul’s first record since 2004, And the Anonymous Nobody will be released this coming April.
