De La Soul's Maseo Recalls 'Divine' JAY-Z Conversation That Boosted Streaming Boycott

De La Soul‘s Maseo has opened up about the group’s conversation with JAY-Z that was instrumental to their music arriving on streaming.

After a long delay and legal battle with their former label Tommy Boy Records, De La Soul’s first six albums — including classics like 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul Is Dead and Buhloone Mindstate — were finally released streaming platforms in March 2023.

In a new interview with TIDAL, Maseo talked about the initial boycott that played a pivotal part in getting their catalog on DSPs after voicing their disapproval with their financial cut.

“What was crazy, we thought Tommy Boy was gonna just go full throttle — let me not just say Tommy Boy, so I’ma say Tom Silverman, the boss man — it just seemed like he was gonna go full throttle and railroad us,” he began.

“We were conflicted: should we do this for the sake of our fans or once again take a monetary loss? And at this stage in our lives, we wrestled with that amongst the three of us.

“It was like, ‘We can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep doing this for the sake of the bigger picture or for the sake of the culture. When is the culture gonna throw it back?'”

Maseo went on to recall De La’s phone call with JAY-Z, calling it “divine.”

“Jay was like, ‘Look man, we just trying to be on the right side of history. This is our thing.'” he recalled. “Hearing us in conflict with it, he was like, ‘Man, what y’all wanna do?’ That call was divine. That call was historical.

“That put the stamp on the boycott and sure enough that just started the wildfire for Spotify to not do it. Apple [Music] didn’t do it. It changed the trajectory of where things are for De La right this moment.”

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De La Soul previously thanked JAY-Z for refusing to stream their catalog on TIDAL back in 2019.

“Dear Fans, just got off the phone with TIDAL,” the group wrote on Instagram at the time. “In support of the artist, TIDAL has decided not to stream our catalog until this matter has been resolved. Thank you TIDAL…Thank you JAY.”

The return of De La Soul’s catalog to streaming platforms was a huge success. According to Billboard, their music registered 12.5 million on-demand U.S. song streams in the first week, along with 28,000 albums sold (both digital download and physical copies combined).