Do you know the difference between young guns and veterans? Veterans don’t have to prove anything ‘cause everybody knows they’ve been in this for years and more. Veterans don’t have to fulfil a cliché, they just are what they are and what they are made of. Peep De La Soul, for a good example. Having been doing their thing for fifteen years now, they always been on the good, on the real, on the soulful side of the game. After years on Tommy Boy Records, De La vanished a couple of months ago. Let's jump to the end of June 2003: Knowing that De La Soul was going to hit the stage, I definitely wanted to talk to them legends. It took me about fifteen phone calls to find out that they were - nowhere, at least as far as the labels were concerned. Definitely another reason to make the guys talk. And that's what Sixshot did.

Let’s cut the label thing in the first place: Where you at now?

We founded our own label, AOI Records. We are working on the album now, and when it’s released, it’s gonna be licensed over different distributors, you know, for Europe and the US etc. Basically we startin’, like I said, our own label, AOI Records, so basically, we’re n o longer on Tommy Boy we’re not even part of the Elektra Records net.

Yeah, MTV.com wrote more than a year ago that you guys got on Elektra when Tommy Boy went down…

Yeah, when Tommy Boy went down, we were supposed to go to Warner Bros. [They] wanted us to be directly on Warner Bros. Silvia Rhone, who runs Elektra Records, put in a call that she wanted De La Soul. But, we couldn’t decide on certain things like money, we wanted a certain amount of money that she didn’t wanna spend, she wanted to have an album of us, like last year around this time, she wanted us to release an album. So we would have  had to stay home and do that. In the end, it was cool, we just walked away from each other with no problem.  

Has this changed your situation musically, like, being a free agent now?

Honestly, not really, ‘cause there’s many problems. They main problem we always had at Tommy Boy is them marketing our record. As far as we are concerned, we never had problems like them telling us what to do [musically], we always had free range and could do whatever we wanted. That’s the type of relationship we had with Tommy, the biggest problem we had was the way they marketed our records, so now that we’re not down with any label, we have this big creative control we always had, only difference is we’re now in control of our records as far as owning is concerned, now, obviously, we’re makin’ a lot more money ‘cause there’s no middle man.

This could have gone differently if you got on Elektra back then.

Yeah, exactly. Especially, I mean, honestly, that’s what we saw in Elektra. We knew that Elektra was a label that is into competing. I saw Silvia Rhone, and I knew her via other artists, Busta for example, I knew that she is very demanding, she’s very into this, you know, having deadlines, on time, she wants certain songs, that’s how she is…

 …which cuts down your freedom as artist…

Yeah, it was like blessing at this time that she want us not to be on Elektra.

Has this had an effect on the not-yet-release of AOI Part 3?

No, we’re just really tryin’ to put together the right record. We have like ten songs, we’re doing another six songs and then wrap the album up. So it’s definitely gonna be a 2003 thing.

Speaking of you guys being in the game for years now: Like, of course the game changed, but has it changed your personal attitude about it?

Rap is definitely different, but it doesn’t make us feel, like, negative about it. We know that here and there, there are good new records and artists out there, the only negative thing is outside of this signing and promoting Jay-Zs, 50s, Eminems, gun-talking and drug-taking part of hip hop, there are also other artists that are great but don’t get any shine. Like, back in ’88, gun-talk was there, but it wasn’t like being everywhere. The only reason why it seems to be eating itself is because back then you had a balance, you had Arrested Development and Naughty [by Nature], nowadays, it’s like you have 50 Naughties and no Arrested Development.

Are you still hungry?

Yes, definitely, it’s something that I love to do, I’m into the art, and, you know, we’re trying to make our skills, we have this respect and we have the fans, we’re daily trying to make ourselves better, you know, and we’re still students, honestly, we’re not yet teachers, we learn everyday.

But don’t you feel like being cut out of the money-cake yourselves sometimes? Take 50 Cent for example, he’s so big right now, other people would have deserved this too…

Yes, but this is just a public standpoint. Of course 50 is everywhere, I’m not saying he ain’t making money, but I guarantee you, 50 said it himself, he’s making even more money on his mixtapes. Mixtapes that are now being bought by people who copped the album and want some more. He earns more by doing this, ‘cause there’s no middle people. You know, a lot of people who sell millions of records ain’t necessarily millionaires. Unfortunately, a lot of rappers wanna be in this studio, they shoot videos, they party expensively, you know, you gotta pay the limousine service, and a lot of rappers don’t get this till it’s too late. You gotta find the mixture between over-exposure and the contrary. If it sells 5 million units like “Three Feet High and Rising”, that’s fine, if it sells one-and-a-half million, that’s fine too. Now the problem is that a lot of artists like Ja Rule and even friends of mine like Busta [Rhymes], a lot of people look at themselves like, all I have is those 15 minutes of fame, so I gotta do everything, I gotta be on this album, I gotta feature on that one, I gotta be in this movie, I gotta have a shoe, you know, they move so fast that… If you take one step at a time, you definitely got quality work, you may be as successful as others in the first place, maybe not, but on the long run you probably get the same.

De La Soul – till when?

As long as we feeling it, man. One of the main things not to lose the feeling is touring, man. You get a lot of input, you see people and you gotta move people, so you also see what’s going on right now. 

Is this different when you are on tour in Europe? Must be kinda weird anyway, especially when you play in front of a crowd that does not even understand your words and your rhymes…

But they feel it, probably. It was really weird at first, but, like I said, we all find something in common, as much as we can be different from each other, there are some things remaining the same, I mean, we all have girl problems, we all wanna get high one day, those are things you can relate to no matter where the person who says that comes from.

De La Soul is openly busy to avoid each and every cliché: You’re hating on the players, but playing around with the haters, you work against categories and archetypes. What’s up with that?

Honestly, for us, it’s not that we are trying, it’s just that, we’re not like this. Honestly, a lot of rappers, they love different vibes, they’re just not going to say this to you. A lot of people don’t show you everything they love, and De La always did. That’s why people came up on us after the release of our second album and were like, I miss that, I miss this, that’s how y’all should have been etc. etc. We were always like, no, this is all part of anything.

But don’t you lack of a personality then? I mean being a personality gives you character!

Look, I know that a lot of especially younger fans ain’t fans of a certain artist because of his music but because the artist is an idol, that’s true. But we had the advantage to be here before rap was so filled up with artists that we had to show people only one certain side of us. Besides, a lot of the personalities you see on TV are really nothing but built up for the public. That people lived and survived what they tell you in their rhymes, well, that’s often true, but other people lived and survived that too and do not tell you about it in their lyrics. It’s just, you know, being a personality is okay, but not acting as if you were a certain personality. At least not for us.

Future Projects?

Well, we work on our label, AOI Records, which will be starting off with our album “AOI: Part III”, others of us got their own labels and stuff, we’re just doing our thing man. And of course touring.

Thanks for the interview!

It remains to be said that one-and-a-half hours later, De La Soul should have appeared on stage. They did not because of technical problems at the venue. But even though the crowd got a little bit anxious as to whether they gonna make it to the stage or not, De La Soul had no problem catching the people in the house at that later time of the evening, and being responsible for one of the greatest shows I ever saw at this place. Waiting and remaining in the game definitely is worth while.