2023 'Til Infinity

There's something fitting about the music of De La Soul finally hitting streaming platforms the year of hip-hop's 50th anniversary. The early De La albums were foundational to the genre during its golden age, especially their collage-like use of the art of sampling. But the issues that kept the group out of digital spaces for decades also happened to be microcosms of greater rap battlefronts: The language in the contracts wasn't prescient enough to predict a digital music economy, leaving the work stuck in physical limbo, and their label held the catalog hostage, refusing to clear the samples. A second label acquired the music and wouldn't give the group a fair split of the digital revenue. As a result, De La Soul didn't exist online, or, to put it another way, they didn't exist at all to younger generations of rap listeners. The entire ordeal seemed to demonstrate how much rap has moved in its run, and where it primarily lives now.

As we have noted this summer, all rap is local. But over time, as the internet has become an integral part of the distribution process, platforms along the web have become their own spaces. The online mixtape suppliers DatPiff and LiveMixtapes, along with their many imitators, quickly incentivized up-and-coming stars to display their skills for free, creating a competitive coliseum wherein the battler roots