Ever since the invention of the MP3, hip-hop fans have had one question: where’s my De La Soul? The iconic Long Island rap group’s first half-dozen albums have never been available digitally. As the days of CDs moved further into the rearview mirror and streaming became ubiquitous, the absence of genre-defining albums like Three Feet High and Rising and De La Soul Is Dead was felt more and more acutely by fans of the genre.

The reasons for the albums’ omissions from digital music stores and streaming services were somewhat muddled, but no small part of the legacy was the fact that many of the records, especially their debut Three Feet High…, were riddled with samples. The group got permission for most of them for the initial release (though not all, which led to a now-infamous 1989 lawsuit against the group), but music business decision-makers believed that those samples needed a new round of OKs for digital release. That task seemed so daunting that it sat undone for years.

Finally, in January of this year, fans got the long-awaited news. De La Soul’s records were finally going to be available for streaming, starting on March 3. As that date approaches, Okayplayer spoke with the person responsible for making sure all those samples were OK to use

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