Chris Daly wouldn’t blink if you sextupled his to-do list
Well, it’s (art) official–De La Soul is very much not dead, thank you very much. In case you’ve been living underneath a rock in a non-WiFi zone, the Long Island trio launched a Kickstarter for a new album, And the Anonymous Nobody, on March 30th, hoping for a relatively modest $110,000. The boys wanted to take the process on themselves, recorded some 200-plus hours of music (sampling being too costly an endeavor anymore) and promised guest spots by Damon Albarn (of Blur/Gorillaz), 2 Chainz, Little Dragon, and David Byrne (of Talking Heads). It took roughly 24 hours to meet that goal. Fast forward to the campaign wrapping up this past May 2, and the Plugs are up $600,874, nearly sextupling their original ask. What’s more, they’re now the second highest funded music project in the history of the site, and when you consider that the high water mark was made by Uber Professional Panhandler Amanda Palmer, that’s saying quite a lot about people demanding more potholes in their lawns.
Now, having donated to plenty of Kickstarters myself in the past, I can tell you from personal experience that Posdnuos, Dave and Maseo have played this one perfectly thus far, with any number of cool pledge gifts, ranging from crate digging with Mase to private listening parties with the entire gang, and numerous updates to keep backers in the loop. The inherent problem with a majority of these projects is they never actually produce anything. The artists aren’t bound legally to deliver a damn thing, and some of these things become obvious money grabs. That certainly doesn’t seem to be the case here, as updates have contained early beats and track titles already. It looks like things are well underway, and from a guy who saw both the original and 25th anniversary tours for Three Feet High and Rising, I could not be more psyched myself.
But wait, there’s more! Obviously, these gentlemen were raised right, as it’s always appropriate to send a thank you to folks who were kind enough to give a gift in the first place. To that end, DLS released a new joint with Nas called “God It.” While not on the upcoming album, it’s intended as “an indication of good music to come.” Produced by G_Force, the hip-hop legends spit their typical streetwise knowledge over a soulful beat. Stakes remain high as expectations buhloone, but it’s clear that the Mars transmissions once again are live.
