De La Soul are finally releasing their crowdfunded album, ”and the Anonymous Nobody...”, on August 26th. For those who’ve missed it, the hip hop pioneers decided to go back in the studio one more time for an album, but the group has always pursued total creative freedom. Financing an album with crowdfunding meant they could keep that creative freedom, so they started a Kickstarter campaign, about a year ago, that turned out to be very successful. And with a nice little budget, they started working.
Three months ago, the group started to release tracks from the upcoming album, which was announced to feature a slew of cameos. The non-album tie-over track, “God It” - intended to keep investors happy once they started showing some impatience - featured Nas. Since, the album track with Snoop Dogg has also been released.
It’s no surprise there were many stars lining up to work with De La Soul, who have a reputation for being true story tellers in their songs and look for creative angles to tell their story from. Their latest drop is no different. It’s a slow jam with Usher called “Greyhounds”, full of metaphors used to tell various stories about street life in New York.
It contains all the elements of a good story. The scene is set, the mood is somewhat creepy and the narrative is engaging.
Usher’s featuring is what saves the track for me, as it’s the much needed variation to rap I always need in rap songs, in order for me to like them, but for some reason, his featuring is also giving me a new found respect for Usher. I really think he did a great job on this track. So have De La Soul, but you know, there’s a reason why they are hip hop pioneers.
