De La Soul should be celebrating the 30th anniversary of its landmark debut "Three Feet High and Rising," which almost immediately influenced hip-hop when it was released on March 3, 1989, and has only grown in stature since then, even though it has never been sold digitally and hasn't been made available on any streaming services.
That was supposed to change on March 1, when Tommy Boy Records planned to put "Three Feet," which became the second hip-hop album to become part of the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2011, on all the major streaming services. However, according to De La Soul, the record company hadn't solved the sample clearance issues that has kept the album from being re-released for years. The trio from Amityville was also unhappy with the way the earnings would be split so Posdnuos, Trugoy and Maseo decided to fight the release and take their battle to the public.
"After 30 long years of good music and paying their debt to hip-hop, De La Soul unfortunately, will not taste the fruit of their labor," De La Soul posted on Instagram. "Your purchases will go 90 percent Tommy Boy, 10 percent De La."
