“Hello, ma’am. This is Pos from De La Soul,” is how Posdnous—aka Plug One, aka Plug Wonderwhy, aka Plug Won, aka Pos, and real name Kelvin Mercer—introduced himself in a recent phone interview.
The 50-year-old was calm and polite and not at all how I was expecting a hip-hop legend, a literal God of Rap, to act on the phone towards a lowly journalist trying to hide her excitement in interviewing one of her musical idols.
Growing up in the golden age of hip-hop, I was lucky to spend my part-time job money on shows and music. Towards the end of high school, my friends and I drifted away from the dark and depressing stuff (read: The Cure) and moved more towards hip-hop, especially the Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, and De La Soul.
Gasparilla Music Festival
w/Brandi Carlile/Portugal. The Man/De La Soul/Rival Sons/St. Lucia/Curtis Harding/The Word/Anderson East/Sales/Marco Benevento/The Nude Party/more
Sat.-Sun. March 7-8. $40 & up
Curtis Hixon Park and Kiley Garden, Downtown Tampa
gasparillamusic.com
So when the news that De La Soul, which also consists of Trugoy/Dave and DJ Maseo, was on the Gasparilla Music Festival (GMF) bill, my husband immediately texted me: “DE LA SOUL"—he’s a millennial, so he doesn’t do all caps unless it’s really something important.
GMF will be the sixth time I’ve seen the band, but it’s important for fans to see the group live because it’s the only way to hear songs from De La Soul’s first four albums—3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul is Dead, Buhloone Mindstate, and Stakes is High (unless, you’ve held onto the original vinyl or CDs.)
De La Soul’s early works are being held hostage by Warner Brothers and Tommy Boy records—a struggle that’s played out publicly on the band’s Instagram. Those albums aren’t on any streaming platform because parties involved can’t agree on a fair cut. Spotify didn’t exist when De La Soul’s record contracts were signed, so the language isn’t there.
But there is still hope.
“(Tommy Boy) sort of came back to the table, we are looking to sort of get it going. At the end of the day, of course, it’s money to be earned. We feel like we deserve [it], but for us it’s really about the fans,” Posdnuos said.
There are also clearance issues for the samples De La Soul used, and there are a lot of them. 3 Feet High alone has over 60 samples, including some from the Commodores, Billy Joel, Otis Redding and Steely Dan.
“I would love it for the fans that stuck by us,” he continued. “We know how it is to be fans of music we love and… we want that for our fans who stood by us for all these years.”
Posdnous seems positive about De La Soul and Tommy Boy working something out eventually.
“At the end of the day, no one wants bad blood between each other, we just want it to be fair and to get the music out to the people,” he said.
Would a Kickstarter campaign—like the one that raised $600,000 to help fund 2016’s Grammy-nominated album And the Anonymous Nobody…—help De La Soul regain control of its masters?
“No. Honestly, I don’t think so,” he said, “Tommy Boy, they definitely want to own and understandably earn from the masters because they are part of the history.”
Until things are figured out, De La Soul is still working on new stuff, including a new album with Pete Rock and DJ Premier.
De La Soul is also featured on “Rocket Fuel”, the first single off DJ Shadow’s new album Our Pathetic Age; Posdnuos and his bandmates performed the song on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” last December.
“[DJ Shadow] let us understand the concept and what he wanted to feel, so we followed the lead. We knew the vein of what he wanted, and it worked out well,” Posdnuos said.
De La Soul still tours a lot, mainly at festivals—like last year’s Gods of Rap tour with Wu Tang Clan and Public Enemy.
“The festivals are just bigger and they pay a lot more… we do travel throughout the world and perform at a lot more festivals outside of the states,” Posdnuos said. “Mind you when we first came out… even in ‘89, festivals were really big throughout Europe and the U.K.”
On tour, not much surprises De La Soul anymore, including where its fans are.
“Scrolling back 20 so years ago, and we’re standing in the middle of Ukraine where people know your lyrics,” he added. “Even in our early days of going to France… fans have their language and they’re speaking it, but then they know all of the words to your songs.”
Thanks to festivals, De La Soul is reaching more people and the new fans end up searching the internet for the songs the group plays live.
So back to the problems at hand.
“Even young kids will be at the festivals and they’re waiting to see who they’re there to see and they’ll sit there listen to us,” he said, “They’ll go right on their phone immediately and try find a song.”
“We’ve had a lot of new people find out about us and become fans of our music from, lets say, touring and being with the Gorillaz,” he said, “They’ll hit us outside and be like ‘Hey! Where’s this music?’...They wind up going to YouTube and seeing older videos.”
Sadly, when all else fails, look on YouTube.
“That’s where our music is, unfortunately, pirated… we aren’t necessarily benefiting from being on someone’s YouTube page,” he added, “but that’s how people have heard music from us.”
When not touring or making music, Posdnuos resides in Ft. Lauderdale with his wife and four-year-old daughter, the fifth of his children. To his kids, he’s not anything other than dad—though they sort of understand his legacy.
“My second daughter, she got it more when she got to college,” he said, “She’s seen a lot more kids who found out who I was and she was like ‘Wow dad! You’re, like, respected!’ and I’m like ‘Uh...Yeah!’”
“Uh, Yeah!” is right Posdnuos. And we hope you get the respect, and the deal, you deserve.
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