De La Soul Drop ‘and the Anonymous Nobody…’ Album: Today in Hip-Hop
On this day, Aug. 26, in hip-hop history...
2016: It had been 14 years since Posdnuos, Trugoy and Maseo, collectively known as De La Soul, put out an album with all three members when they dropped their eighth group effort, and the Anonymous Nobody.... The Long Island, N.Y. trio definitely had to trust the process on this one.
Without label backing, the legendary crew launched a kickstarter in March 2015 to raise funds for the album. They had procured $600,000 in a matter of months and quickly got to work putting out tracks.
Some delays occurred and four months before the release of the LP they put out the For Your Pain & Suffering EP to give fans a taste. When they finally put out the final product in August, the project featured De La returning to form with assists from Pete Rock, Snoop Dogg, 2 Chainz, Jill Scott and more.
Riley Wallace critiqued the LP for XXL, giving it mostly positive reviews. "[De La Soul] didn't feel pressure to make new material, and the Anonymous Nobody... is organic in the best way possible," Wallace penned back in 2016. "It came about from both sheer crowd-sourced demand and the trio's undying love of the art itself. Nothing here is rushed, forced or out of place. The album doesn't try to fit into any box for the purpose of selling records. Hell, the records were pre-sold, so stakes weren't that high. But they still put together one of their strongest efforts yet."
The album debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 and De La Soul proved they were not dead.
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