DE LA SOUL
In the late ’80s, Kelvin Mercer “Posdnuos”, David Jude Jolicoeur, “Trugoy The Dove” and Vincent Mason “Pasemaster Mase” changed the face of hip-hop with their debut album 3 Feet High And Rising. Breaking the genre’s codes and displaying flowers and flashy colors on the album cover, De La Soul assumed a positive, festive spirit. Other classics followed: De La Soul Is Dead, Buhloone Mindstate, Stakes Is High, and the two Art Official Intelligence albums that younger generations have been able to discover on various platforms since 2023. Despite the death of Dave Jolicoeur, De La Soul decided to celebrate their friend and their music with a tour that kicked off at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2023, confirming the considerable influence of this pioneering group in the history of hip-hop.
BLACK STAR
The Black Star duo of Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) and Talib Kweli could hardly be better named. These two Brooklyn-born rappers, not yet legendary in 1998, combine their talents on Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, an album that has become an indispensable classic. With contributions from Weldon Irvine and inspiration from Toni Morrison, they displayed not only their masterful flow, but also a culture and quality of writing that qualified them as urban poets. Since then, each of them has individually built up a solid discography, which includes other classics, but their return in 2022 with the album No Fear of Time, produced entirely by Madlib, was an event we had no longer expected. After a 24-year absence, the alchemy between these two incredible rappers can finally work again.