De La Soul want you to have all of their music for free. The American hip-hop group are celebrating their 25th anniversary by making their “entire catalogue” available, at no cost, on their website.



Starting today at 11am EST and continuing for 25 hours, visitors to De La Soul’s official site will be able to legally download the group’s complete discography, according to Rolling Stone. “It’s about allowing our fans who have been looking and trying to get a hold of our music to have access to it,” Posdnuos explained. “This is our way of showing them how much we love them.”



Most of De La Soul’s seven studio albums are hard to find on digital platforms: as hip-hop pioneers, their early records are filled with samples, making them difficult to license. “We can’t even have our music on iTunes,” Posdnuos revealed. While the group’s labels are still trying to clear the material for future sale, “it’s been a trying journey”, he said. Bizarrely, a brief online free-for-all seems the best way to get their songs into some fans’ hands.

Besides celebrating the quarter-century since De La Soul’s debut, 3 Feet High, today’s giveaway is also a promotion for the trio’s new work. You’re Welcome, their first LP in a decade, is due out “before summer”, and in the meantime they are releasing the six-song EP Preemium Soul on the Rocks. The title is a riff on the EP’s producers, DJ Premier and Pete Rock.

“We’re just getting in the mode of constantly giving people new music,” Posdnuos said. “We’re our own worst critics ... Certain groups have too many ‘yes men.’ In our group, we have too many ‘no men’.” If You’re Welcome does finally make it into the world, the group are already working on the follow-up. “Wooo, I wish I could talk about it,” he said. “We’ve sat a long time without releasing an album. It’s high time we start releasing a bunch of stuff because it’s there.”

In addition to their hit collaborations with Gorillaz, De La Soul have sold more than 25m of their own albums. Upon its release in 1989, 3 Feet High and Rising reached No 13.

