After decades of legal disputes over their samples, hip-hop pioneers De La Soul are finally making their timeless early hits available on streaming platforms starting this Friday.
The debut single is ‘The Magic Number,’ which is taken from the platinum-selling 1989 album ‘3 Feet High and Rising.’ It was given fresh life when it was included on the soundtrack for ‘Spiderman: No Way Home’ in 2021.
The New York trio’s first six albums, which span the years 1989 to 2001, have not been made available for streaming because Tommy Boy, the label they were on, never took on the laborious legal work of clearing all the samples.
The group cleared the rights for sales of vinyl and audio cassettes, but streaming offers a much more lucrative and ongoing source of revenue that requires specific deals with each rights-holder.
De La Soul are well aware of the dangers of unlicensed sampling, having been at the center of a landmark case in 1991 when the little-known band ‘The Turtles’ sued them for sampling one of their songs and won a reported $1.7 million.
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