De La Soul is set to release their eighth album, The Grind Date, with a high-end signing to the Matthew Knowles-headed Sanctuary Urban Records Group. The album is slated for release on September 28.
De La Soul member Pos said that Knowles was attracted to De La because of their proven durability, consistency and their built-in fan base.
“We have shown a steady pace of longevity. Nowadays, people are so quick to want to blow up, but they burn themselves out very quickly instead of moving slow and steady. I’d like to think that De La Soul is like incense that’s burning slow and even by the time it’s fizzed out, it’s left a great aroma,” Pos stated.
DJ Mace said that the album’s title is indicative of their mantra after 15 years in the rap game and the industry’s mentality overall.
“To get to the point of releasing this new album it’s been a grind, but as a group we have never stopped working,” Mace said. “Over the past three years we have been busy traveling the world taking hip hop to places like Prague, Ireland, and Poland, as well as continuing to play in the mainstays such as London and the U.S.”
The Grind Date features a cornucopia of guest appearances like filmmaker Spike Lee, Bonz Malone, crooner Carl Thomas, Common, MF Doom, Sean Paul, Ghostface Killah. Production is being handled by JayDee of Slum Village fame, Dave West, Madlib, and Jake1.
Additionally, for those that thought De La was dormant, Maceo revealed that the group had a few extraordinary dealings slightly outside of Hip-Hop’s conventional boundaries.
He said, “We have also been busy designing a new limited edition shoe with Nike called the ‘De La Dunk’ that is due to arrive in stores in the fall, and we are gearing up to teach a class a NYU (New York University) this fall on Hip-Hop, as well as working on our new album.”
Furthermore, the new deal with SURG also coincides with the group’s new record label, AOI Records.
Knowles, who is also Beyonce’s father, said that he was thrilled at the reality of joining forces with such a mainstay in Hip-Hop.
“Hip Hop’s dominance in the marketplace is sprinkled with a handful of creative, envelope-pushing artists, and De La Soul is one of them. I am happy to begin our foray into the Hip-Hop industry with veterans such as De La Soul…we are going to be very successful together,” Knowles said.
Concluding, Dave (aka Trugoy) concluded,” The most important thing to us is respect. We’ve never compromised ourselves or our artistic point of view and we, as people are just everyday people. You are never going to see us doing anything other that what we do. Being Dave, Pos, or Mace.”