Image via Marcus J. Moore/Twitter
When De La Soul announced they were planning a special tribute concert in honor of the late Dave “Trugoy The Dove” Jolicoeur, I was at the office and told all my coworkers that there was no way I wasn’t going. The show was dubbed The DA.I.S.Y. Experience and would be held at Webster Hall on March 2, 2023. I was still feeling heavy-hearted every time I’d hear a De La track, and figured this would be the perfect opportunity for family, friends, and fans like me to show our shared appreciation for Dave, Posdnuos, and Maseo. After a decades-long dispute with their former label, Tommy Boy, De La Soul had finally acquired the rights to their masters.
That excitement turned to distress when I learned only 333 tickets would be available to the public. On the morning of March 1, all tickets were spoken for in less than a minute, leaving me and countless other hopefuls devastated that they would have to settle for watching the tribute on Twitch.
Later that day, I was chatting with someone I’d connected with after selecting a ticket to the listening session for And the Anonymous Nobody… as my reward for contributing to the Kickstarter in 2015. He asked if I was going to the show. When I told him that I didn’t have a ticket, he offered me his +1. I was overwhelmed and profoundly grateful. When I asked, “But why me?” he said that outside of his connections in the industry, he’d never met anyone who loved hip-hop as much as I do.
I still have so many memories from that night, from the floor to ceiling daisy decorations to watching Queen Latifah and everyone’s favorite hypewoman Monie Love perform “Ladies First” and “U.N.I.T.Y.” and an unexpected marathon of a freestyle from Black Thought. But nothing compared to hearing Dave Chappelle count down the last remaining seconds to midnight when dozens of daisy-shaped balloons fell from the ceiling to celebrate the availability of De La’s first six studio albums on streaming services.
When I found out a well-respected journalist was writing the first biography on the group at the end of 2023, I felt that same excitement over the opportunity to immerse myself in their story once again. Only this time, it would be from the lens of a lifelong fan like me. Marcus J. Moore had already started thinking about High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul before his first book, The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America, was published in 2020.
High and Rising started off as a biography about one of the first hip-hop groups that Moore related to in a real way–quickly, he found a need to weave his own narrative into that of De La’s. The book is dedicated to his late mother who passed not long before the completion of the text. Moore announced plans for the book’s release on Instagram in November of 2024: “High and Rising marks a period of change for all of us. It’s about De La, me, my mother and my family. It’s about grief, creative ingenuity, joy, and normalcy. It’s about life and the music and people we love.”
Despite De La, and many of their fans, expressing displeasure in how the release of High and Rising was handled, Moore has received praise from fellow journalists and well-respected artists in the industry. Phonte Coleman, Grammy nominated singer, rapper, and producer of Little Brother and The Foreign Exchange called it “a love letter to one of the greatest rap groups of all time.”
In tandem, Rolling Stone included High and Rising in the list of “The Best Music Books of 2024” saying, “Unfortunately, the surviving members of De La Soul…didn’t seem to appreciate Moore’s reverence and disavowed the book as ‘unauthorized.’ Authorized or not, High and Rising is a must-read for fans of the group and Nineties hip-hop.”
My conversation with Moore, lightly edited for content and clarity, follows below. – Lara Gamble