You've been bucking trends and weathering hip-hop climate shifts since you took your first breath on wax. One of you enjoyed instant crossover success with your debut LP, while the other is finally getting radio heads to see "The Light." What do you do?
You spearhead the inaugural edition of the smoking, sweltering SpitKicker tour, of course.
In advance of the release of "Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump," the older and ever-wise men of De La Soul -- Posdnous, Maseo, and Trugoy The Dove (who now prefers to go by Dave, the familiar of his given name) -- hooked up with fan-turned-friend Common, who appeared on the trio's last album, 1996's "Stakes Is High," and a swank array of other SpitKickers including Pharoahe Monch, Biz Markie, and Reflection Eternal (Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek) to embark on a traveling hip-hop family jam, welcoming local friends onstage for extended free-form sets filled with on-the-spot collaborations and all-around good love for one another as well as for all who flocked to witness it go down in their town.
The New York stop on the SpitKicker tour saw the likes of Erykah Badu, Mos Def, The Roots' Black Thought, and Jeru The Damaja hit the stage, along with Redman, who joined De La to spit his lines from the trio's new single, "Oooh." MTV News' Brian McFayden talked with De La before and after the show about the ins and outs of performing live. Meanwhile, MTV Radio's Curtis Waller caught up with Common, who's currently breaking out with his latest single, "The Light," to talk about the SpitKicker tour's potential impact on progressive hip-hop and his longstanding history with De La.
As Dave himself would say, it's all about family...
