It seems damn near everyone who ever played in the rock ‘n’ roll game is reforming and re-touring the world in pursuit of their youthful achievements. Along with the not-insignificant hope that their original fans are willing to part with their money in order to experience nostalgia. Encouraged by a trend named ‘Don’t Look Back’ that began with the British label and festival coordinators All Tomorrow’s Parties, many of these acts opt to play their best-known albums in their entirety. Though they’re far removed from the rock game and have a point of distinction in that they’ve never broken up, New York hip-hop trio De La Soul – who’ve retained the same line-up of Posdnous, Dave (a.k.a. Trugoy) and Maseo since forming in 1987 – hopped on that bandwagon two years ago, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album, 1989’s 3 Feet High and Rising.

De La Soul’s role as part of the American hip-hop canon can not be understated. They achieved worldwide fame with their debut release, and though they arguably never managed to scale those same heights with ensuing material, they’ve nonetheless managed to clock up over a dozen releases, including studio albums, mixtapes, and a 2009 project for Nike named Are You In?, which consisted of a single, 44-minute long track designed to be listened to while on the run. They’ve also been frequent collaborators with Gorillaz (the trio won a Grammy for their guest appearance in ‘Feel Good Inc.’, an international megahit characterised by De La’s distinctive laughter), and they were in Australia only recently supporting that band in December 2010.

Later this month, De La Soul will visit Australia to celebrate their second album, De La Soul Is Dead. TheVine connected with MC Kelvin Mercer, better known as Posdnous (pronounced ‘pasta-noose’; ‘sound sop’ backwards, FYI), to discuss the band's history, health, Australian hip-hop and his own personal Wikipedia citation.

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Hey, Pos. Where are you right now?

I’m in my house, in my computer room. I’m just sitting here, talking with you.

In New York?

No, I’m actually Atlanta. We’re all originally from New York but I live in Atlanta, Georgia now.

Should I call you Kelvin, or Pos? Which are you more comfortable with?

Pos is fine.

We’re talking because you’re playing De La Soul Is Dead across Australia next month. How are you feeling about that prospect?

It’s just another part of us being happy to still be here. Not too long ago, we celebrated the anniversary of 3 Feet High and Rising, and so now we’ve realised that, “Wow, we have all these other albums that it’s gonna flow on and be an anniversary from now to be up on the second album”. It’s a testament to us being young kids; 17, 18 years old that we can now stand here [in our] early 40s and know that music touch peoples’ lives, and we can still perform it. It’s an amazing feeling.


De La Soul - 'Ring Ring Ring'

What does that album mean to you, in 2011?

That album was a great departure from where we were mentally on the first one. Because the first album consisted of a lot of ideas that we put together, honestly, before we had any type of success. De La Soul Is Dead was stuff we were experiencing after 3 Feet High and Rising came out, [like] being able to be put on tour with LL Cool J and going around the world with Fine Young Cannibals, and seeing a bit of shady business going on.

A lot of people consider De La Soul Is Dead one of our quote-unquote ‘darker’ albums. But I think it’s a lot of fun on that album. You’ve got songs like ‘Ring Ring Ring’, songs like ‘Saturdays’. I think there’s a lot of fun on that album but in a nutshell it was just fun to make, as are a lot of our albums. There were a lot of skits on that album. There was a lot of different music on that album, so it was a lot of fun making it. When I think of that album, I just think of the recording process, and how much fun it was, and a lot of cool stuff that just fell into place.

The title of that album alone, it was not planned. It was, like, Dave making fun. Our management at the time, Rush Management, had a board with our name, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Run DMC – whoever was on Rush at the time – and they had all these dates. Dave was just so tired of being on tour, he walked to the board and erased all of our dates and wrote ‘De La Soul is dead’, and everyone started laughing.

Then next thing you know we was like, “You know, that would be a cool title…”. That motto representing the way we were thinking at the time. A lot of times people will say that when you die, it’s because you go up to the next plane, it’s actually like you’re changing. You’re like [how] a caterpillar will die and become a butterfly. For me, the album title meant that the 3 Feet High and Rising guys you know went through a metamorphisis and changed into these new three guys, who were a little bit older, but who were trying to still live and give you good music.

You were 21 when that album was released. Is there anything you wish you could have told your 21 year-old self back then?

Yeah – save more money, and stop trickin’! [laughs] No! I mean, honestly, the stuff that we were blessed to learn, the work ethic we were blessed to implement through being with people like Prince Paul and even a lot of different artists at that time that was making it, like Daddy-O, or Chuck D from Public Enemy. There was a lot of people, and we were willing to listen. It’s always good to be a student as well as trying to be a teacher, and we was always willing to be students of the artists that we loved. And they helped give us a lot of sound advice on how to do things.

So I can’t really say that [in response to the question]. When I listen back to the album itself, lyrically, yeah, I was still growing. I can look at myself now and think that I’m a better lyricist, but hey: that’s growth. So I wouldn’t tell myself to do anything different. I think what we did then was pretty amazing.


De La Soul - 'A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays'