Respecta.is - The Ultimate Hip Hop Portal

"and the Anonymous Nobody" is the first De La Soul studio album in eleven years and as independent artists, free of record labels interfering in the creative process. True to the roots of Hip-Hop, the new album incorporates elements of Jazz, Funk, Rock, Country Western and more sampled to create the tracks. Sampling is how De La has always made music but after spending a huge part of their career fighting off the "sample police", De La decided to take a completely new approach, something Hip-Hop hasn't done before...sampling themselves.

Over three years, De La collaborated with some of LA's finest studio musicians and recorded them in free-styled, unrehearsed, jam sessions. They played everything from banjo to upright bass, sometimes up to a dozen musicians at once; simply allowing sounds to integrate. Recorded in one of LA's most classic studios, Vox, the recordings have that creamy analog warm mixing board sound that the old records our parent's once played had. With over 200 hours of sounds, and vibes, equal to about 250 to 300 full-length vinyl LPs, De La began listening, enjoying and discovering those special moments where, musically, something magical happens, where interesting sounds and layers were forgotten, where new sounds can be sampled, looped, chopped, filtered and arranged, freely, without the intrusive presence of publishing politics and the infamous "sample police."

"What we've done is created our own crates of records; album upon albums to mine and sample from. In our world, what we've created is freedom, freedom to make the art you believe in without having to compromise your vision. That's what we've always wanted most, that's what we've always believed in, that's what we've fought for..." -De La Soul