Thirty years into their career the members, Dave, Maseo and Posdnuos, of rap group De La Soul are still expanding the possibilities of the musical genres. During the Eighties they burst onto the scene with a sound that so unique it really gained them plenty of admiration and fans. Now they are no longer the new kids on the block but I am sure that young rappers are still turning to them for indications of what is possible. We did have to wait quite a long time for some new material from the trio as it has been twelve years since their last album. Using the very modern Kickstarter to fund And the Anonymous Nobody, the material found on it shows that their drive has not decreased in the least. They collected the over two hundred hours of free flowing stuff recorded and worked on what they felt was the strongest. A nice array of guests appears on the album like Blur’s Damon Albarn, Jill Scott, Talking Heads’ David Byrne, 2 Chainz, Usher and Snoop Dogg. At times they hang on to their long developed silliness a little too much though they always manage to get back on track with brilliant beats and rhymes just when it feels like they might be going off the rails. The strongest track “Greyhound” uses the rhythms laid down originally by Stevie Wonder on “Living for the City”. What I love most about this is that this is an album that anyone from their teen years right up until their forties can groove to.
De La Soul – and the Anonymous Nobody
