De La Soul Disappoints Fans By Blasting Journalist’s Book On The Rap Group

Music journalist Marcus J. Moore recently wrote a book called High & Rising about the lives and legacies of De La Soul… But they aren’t very excited about the endeavor. “This is an unauthorized book, and we are not connected to it in any way,” the legendary hip-hop group stated on social media. “If you choose to support this book, that’s your right. We just want it to be clear that we do not and we are exploring all of our legal options.” As you can see in the replies to the Twitter post down below, a lot of fans expressed disappointment with this distance.

Many of them explained how Marcus J. Moore’s High & Rising is a piece of love, care, and appreciation for the indelible career of De La Soul. In addition, they brought up the lack of foundation for a group of their size and caliber to “explore legal options” around what another creative legally wrote about them. It’s important to note, however, that De La has struggled with IP and corporate ownership of their work in the past.

Still, these past struggles when it comes to De La Soul benefitting from their craft and navigating the industry don’t really apply to the kind of great work that Marcus J. Moore is so renowned for. As such, many fans feel like they are misdirecting their anger here. Regardless, there is still a lot that we don’t know when it comes to this story, and hopefully the parties involved can address these problems with more clarity, earnestness, and cooperation. High & Rising is the kind of work that could bring the hip-hop group many new listeners and fans, and an homage that further canonizes them in the history books thanks to fans’ ardent support of it.

Nevertheless, De La Soul will always be one of the best of all time no matter what happens with High & Rising. Hopefully they can listen to fans and find common ground with Marcus J. Moore, or at least explain what’s going on in a way that concretizes their worries. It’s a complex problem, but not an impossible one.