Legendary hip-hop trio De La Soul just months ago while in New Zealand for the WOMAD festival, announced one of the most anticipated new records of the year with their eighth studio album (and first in 11 years!) titled and the Anonymous Nobody. With the album dropping August 26th on A.O.I Records via Kobalt, the group have shared some material off the forthcoming new release.

Listen to the latest track 'Pain' featuring Snoop Dogg below

To accompany the funk-infused track, the group has released an interactive lyric video game, where the player (The Anonymous Nobody) must dodge the lyrics from 'Pain'. You can play the game on any computer or smart phone at wearedelasoul.com.

In earlier May this year, De La Soul shared the very first peek at the new album through the multi-percussive single Trainwreck which is a cut from the Grammy award winning trio's 4-track EP, For Your Pain and Suffering. The EP was released and shared earlier this year as a 'thank you' to the band's Kickstarter supporters who helped raise capital for the recording of the forthcoming album project which we now see coming to fruition in 'and the Anonymous Nobody'. The Kickstarter campaign itself, which ran for 33 days in May 2015, attracted more than 11K backers and raised an impressive $600K in funding, making it the second most successful in the platform's history.
 
The creation of and the Anonymous Nobody has been several years in the making. De La Soul wanted to make another sample-based album in the vein of their game-changing debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising. In order to do so, and avoid the legalities of sample clearance, they spent a few years recording more than 300 hours of live music, converging everything from bossa nova, soul and hip-hop to funk, disco and reggae, creating their own sample library. The body of work is a concept and continuous story, even down to the transitions of songs with sound effects and instrumentals.

Behind the scenes, this hearty record was mixed by Bob Power, Morgan Garcia and De La Soul, as well as produced by Dave West and the trio themselves. The 17-song tracklist features an array of guest appearances from artists like: Snoop Dogg, Usher, Jill Scott, Little Dragon, David Byrne and more.

“This album is about lending to the scape of music in 2016, trying to give something, not for the sake of we want to balance what’s going on or fix hip-hop. We just want to say something to the creative aspects of music,” says Dave.
 
De La Soul - and the Anonymous Nobody Tracklisting