It's been an amazing year for hip-hop veterans dropping great albums, especially those coming out of Mass Appeal. Their "Legend Has It" series in 2025 already boasts releases from Slick Rick, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, and most recently, the partly posthumous Mobb Deep album Infinite (RIP Prodigy). Now, the baton passes to De La Soul's LP, Big L's posthumous effort (RIP), and the joint Nas and DJ Premier record to close the year out.
Nas and DJ Premier built loads of hype, as the longtime collaborators continue to stand as two revered icons in New York rap and beyond. But there's even more to share. Per HipHopDX, at a New York Comic-Con panel on Friday (October 10), Esco and Preemo appeared alongside many of their "Legend Has It" peers – including the surviving De La members Posdnuos and Maseo (RIP Trugoy The Dove), The Chef, GFK, and Slick Rick – to talk about their Marvel comic book collaboration and their next albums. The Illmatic spitter's collab album with Premier will come out in December. However, we don't have a specific release date or title yet.
De La Soul New Album
Big L's Harlem's Finest: Return Of The King, on the other hand, will drop on October 31. "This is a full circle moment. And we are excited for y’all to hear what we’ve been working on," his family stated. "As some of you may have noticed, many Big L songs have been removed from streaming services over the past few years. Those songs were unmixed/unmastered, samples were not cleared and many of the producers weren’t paid or credited properly. Thanks to the team at @MassAppeal we will be re-releasing the best versions of these songs. Rare freestyles and a few surprises..."
Elsewhere, De La Soul's Cabin In The Sky will release in November of this year. It's a nod to an all-Black musical film from 1943, and a tribute to the late Trugoy The Dove. "We’re working and working [on the album], and I come across this movie," Posdnuos shared at the Comic Con panel. "And I’m like, ‘Yo, this title is crazy!’ Cabin in the Sky. Immediately, I felt Dave." We can't wait to hear these hopefully stellar records.
