De La Soul Do Heroic Music Sh*T
and the Anonymous Nobody...
I am, and always have been, a De La Soul fan. I have met them several times (not that they would likely remember it) but I recounted those stories HERE (written way before I moved to this blog backbone). I can honestly say I have been listening since the first album (they have been together for 28 years basically).
Let me also mention that every time I met them they were incredibly nice. Every time I have ever seen them, they came out into the crowd to watch the opening acts. Every time I have seen them they were approachable and polite to everyone. And every time I have seen them, Maceo warmed up the crowd before Pos and Dave got on stage.
My title for this is not about big H heroism. I am not saying that they are putting out fires or saving lives (although music can and does).
Music heroism is about being able to do what you want independent of the music industry using the most powerful force in the world. Normal folks, or...the anonymous nobody.
De La funded their new album entirely through a Kickstarter campaign. The campaign raised $110,000 in 9 hours and almost a half a million dollars total.
As Dave puts it in the documentary, the 11,000 people who funded it "weren't Oprah."
This is heroic to me because I have been trying to accomplish this same thing here (getting normal people to use # power to push alternative music in defiance of industry music consolidation
Sure, I have been much less successful. But it is still damn cool to see them succeed.
Oh one other thing, they brought musicians into a recording studio over several years to jam. This allowed them to accumulate over 200 hours of multitracked music that they could sample royalty free. That is pretty amazing too.
Anyway, here is the documentary about the album, and I will link the album below the documentary.
Did I mention a #Spotify link to...and the Anonymous Nobody?
This album is pretty amazing. The collaborations are nuts, Damon Albarn makes easy sense, but David Byrne? Jill Scott, of course, but Justin Hawkins? There are even rock and punk songs (along with classic De La sounding songs).
Anyway, check it out, well worth a few minutes of your time!
Oh, and you really better have heard:
If you want to understand De La.
Anyone else got De La Soul stories to share? Leave a comment, share your stories!