DE LA SOUL, ‘ARE YOU IN?’ – SPORTMUSIC

It’s five years since De La Soul last released a full-length LP, so their new LP ‘Are You In?’ carries a weight of expectation. This weight gets even heavier when you consider that 2009 is the 20th anniversary of ’3 Feet High and Rising’ and anything they do this year is going to create interest for the press and fans alike. Essentially a mix, ‘Are You In?’, has been produced in conjunction with Nike for the Nike+Original Run series. Previous releases have include avant-garde electro cats, A-Trak and LCD Soundsystem, and so from the off it’s going to be an interesting collab.

Thankfully ‘Are You In?’ showcases that De La still have enthusiasm for making good time music and the mix is an enjoyable journey. Maseo is still experimenting, dropping in a range of obscure and familiar samples and snippets of rock, funk, Sarah Jones spoken word and hip-hop beats. This backdrop gives Posdnous and Trugoy on the mic to drop their trademark rhyming and dropping dexterous lyrics. After 20 years of making music it’s refreshing that there is no world-weariness and they aren’t going through the motions. ‘Are You In?’ is good enough to bear the De La name.

The other interesting aspect of the release is the way the music has been produced. Instead of going into the studio and wondering where to start, the group have been commissioned to produce music that can be used in the gym, on the track or in the park. This has influenced the mix in terms of it’s pace and rhythm. From an athletes point of view, professional and amateur alike, this sports psyching music does the trick and works like aural adrenaline. The other point worth discussing is that Nike are innovating here. Selling a brand through multiple related products i.e. selling you music that you run to as well as the trainers you run to, is actually a clever idea. You only have to go back to the days of pre-Premiership Wimbledon ‘Crazy Gang’ FC, to see how sports professionals have used music to focus and raise performance levels. Providing music specific for sports training is an intriguing proposition and it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

James Griffin