De La Soul Performs at the Twilight Concert Series

Photo Credit: Creative Commons/ Tyson K. Elder

The ever-popular Twilight Concert Series is winding down for the year with only two shows remaining! This Thursday, August 21, see hip hop trio De La Soul take the stage!

About De La Soul:

The group formed in 1987 in Long Island, New York when the three members--Posdnous, Trugoy The Dove, and DJ P.A. Pacemaster Mase--attended high school together.

Their first album, 3 Feet High and Rising, was released in 1989 and called the future of hip hop. Unlike the more hardcore rap that was popular at the time, De La Soul differed by preaching peace and infusing their music with humor and fun. Their first hit "Me, Myself, and I" was Number One on the R&B charts and it topped the Top 40 Pop chart as well. This sound brought in new fans to the rap scene who didn't listen to the rap popular at this time. 

But as their popularity grew among this new fan base, De La Soul changed direction when they with their second album in 1991--a much more serious project called De La Soul is Dead. Reviewers liked the album, but it failed to draw appeal from the masses and netted just one hit. But this pioneering group did not give up and continued creating albums that drew a different audience from their first, but nonetheless helped them establish a dedicated fan base. 

In 2000 they released the first of what De La Soul said would be a trio of records called Art Official Intelligence. The first in the set, Mosiac Thump, debuted in the Top 10 and developed a following that De La Soul had been hoping for, and MTV.com even named it, "one of the year's most inventive albums." The second and third installments of the trio were released in 2001 and 2004 respectively.
In 2014, to celebrate their 25th anniversary as a group, De La Soul gave away their entire catalog online on Valentine's Day for 25 hours. Some of this music had never been available online and was hard to find in stores too, so De La Soul released it all as a generous thank you to their fans. They even received the Artist of the Year Webby Award in April for this massive catalog release. 

For the remainder of 2014 De La Soul is touring not just the United States with their Utah and Philadelphia stops, but around the world with shows planned in the United Kingdom and France.