De La Soul dilutes their legacy

On November 21 De La Ziel‘s surviving members, Kelvin “Posdnous” Mercer and Vincent “DJ Maseo” Mason, shocked fans by denouncing Marcus J. Moore’s new biography, High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul through their social media accounts. “We have received congratulations on a book entitled ‘High & Rising’,” read the messages. “However, we want to make it absolutely clear: this is an unauthorized book and we are in no way affiliated with it.” The message went on to say: “If you choose to support this book, that is your right. We just want to make it clear that this is not the case and we are exploring all our legal options.”

De La Soul insinuates that they were blinded by it High and rising publication on November 19. But in the book, which Harper Collins’ Dey St. is promoting as “the very first book about the trio,” Moore writes that he interviewed several of De La’s former collaborators, such as the Jungle Brothers and DJ Premier, but “the group did not participate .” (High and rising may be the first important biography about the group. But a critical biography published by J-Card Press, De La Ziel by Dave Heaton, preceded it in July.) During High and risingIn its more than 200 pages, Moore not only writes about the Long Island trio’s history from a critical and cultural perspective, but also interweaves personal memories of fandom, from hearing “Potholes in My Lawn” as an eight-year-old to being interviewed the group in 2016. Moore finds solace in their music as he mourns the death of his mother, closing with a heartfelt open letter to Dave “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicouer, who died on February 12, 2023.

Moor has contributed Rolling stoneamong many other publications. In 2020, RS mentioned his first book The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Sparked the Soul of Black America as one of the best music books of the year. He is currently an adjunct professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Harper Collins responded: “Marcus J. Moore prefers not to resurrect De La Soul’s response to the book, etc., and will therefore reserve this interview to pass by.” In one Forbes profile, he discussed High and rising‘s unique mix of music history and autobiography, explain“Ultimately, we only get one shot at this thing (life) and I didn’t want to present a book that was too cryptic for no reason. Who wants an overly scientific De La Soul book? Those guys were fun.” De La Soul representatives could not be reached for comment.

De La Soul’s unexpected wide side against High and rising drew much online condemnation. “As critics and journalists, we are used to our work being criticized and questioned. To see artists (or their estates) try to equate unauthorized with defamation sucks… but it’s also incredibly dangerous,” wrote longtime music journalist Gerrick Kennedy on Twitter/X.

Tensions between journalists and rappers have flared frequently since hip-hop came of age in the late 1980s, when the mainstream media’s frequent distortions of the genre led to justified backlash, such as Public Enemy’s “Don’t Believe the Hype.” In the nineties, critical journal reviews and articles led to threats of violence or worse. Old heads of a certain age still gossip about Masta Killa of the Wu-Tang Clan sucker punched Cheo H. Coker on a 1994 article in The Source. (Decades later, Masta Killa refused The incident occurred.) Such conflicts appear to be rooted in misunderstandings, leading leading rap artists – many of whom emerged from impoverished circumstances – to fear whether negative publicity could damage their livelihoods and (wrongly) lash out.

Those old-fashioned confrontations echo in the road A tribe called Quest indicted documentary by actor-director Michael Rapaport from 2011 Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Journeys of a Tribe Called Quest for recording heartbreaking battles between Q-Tip and the late Phife Dawg; and how Lil Wayne tried to sue Adam Bhala Lough about the 2009 cult doc The Carterostensibly for its raw scenes of substance abuse. But in recent years there has been a subtle shift from self-serving battles over reputation to less principled conflicts over brand control, such as when Kanye West rejected his participation in Coodie & Chike’s 2022 documentary. Jeen-Yuhs because he was denied the final cut. This reflects an environment in which celebrities demand production credit and veto power over all content they are involved withjournalistic integrity be damned.

In the literary hip-hop world, this is the closest precedent to De La Soul’s complaint against Moore’s High and rising could be Paul Cantor’s 2022 book Most Dope: The Extraordinary Life of Mac Molenaar. Even before it was finished, the late rapper’s mother, Karen Meyers, warned on Instagram in 2019: “To artists, management and friends: There is a writer making a Mac Miller biography… We are not participating and would rather you doesn’t do that either. you knew Malcolm personally.” Then, when Most Dope was made available for pre-order in May 2021, Myers instructed fans to ignore it in favor of a biography authorized by Mac Miller’s estate, Donna-Claire Chesman’s The book Mac. “(Cantor) chose to go against our polite insistence that he would not do Malcolm’s legacy a disservice by writing a book without legitimate primary sources,” she wrote in a separate message.

The negative publicity that Mac Miller’s estate generated Most Dope made Cantor a target of the beloved rapper’s fanbase. “They sent me death threats, called me names, and accused me of all kinds of things…Trolls bombarded sites like Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, and Google Books, leaving one-star reviews and comments that discredited me and my book—even though they had never read a single word of it,” Cantor wrote later. “How did writing a simple biography turn into something so toxic? The whole situation sent me into a crushing depression.”

So far, De La Soul’s social media post hasn’t sparked a similarly toxic overreaction: High and rising currently enjoys a 4.03 rating on Goodreads. However, it betrays similar illusions that books are just another form of intellectual property that an artist should benefit from. “You have been at our side for years in our battle for ownership of our catalog,” the group wrote, referring to their years-long battle for streaming rights. “Our story is told in our words, in our way, in the style you have come to know and love. Until then, we encourage you to enjoy the authentic DAISY era by supporting projects supported by us.” They then point to a spring 2025 release date for “that authentic ‘De La’.”

But Moore does not deny De La Soul that he makes profits from intellectual property. He comments with loving criticism on a musical ensemble whose words, images and creativity have influenced generations of lives, including his own. Writers must be able to observe, criticize, and analyze the world around them, regardless of the intellectual merits of their conclusions. A veiled threat of a lawsuit against High and rising not only violates U.S. copyright laws on fair use, but also threatens to undermine the spirit of communal joy and moral responsibility that De La Soul has so beautifully conveyed through their art.