MUSIC

FIRST LISTEN: First Serve

De La Soul Members Reincarnate as Basement-Bound Queens Emcees ; Album Due April 2nd

Long Island hip-hop legends De La Soul could loosely be considered a 'concept' rap group. From their participation in the Native Tongues hip-hop collective alongside acts like A Tribe Called Quest and The Jungle Brothers in the late 80's/early 90's, to theme-ish albums like De la Soul is Dead and the Art Official Intelligence series, they've long been comfortable assigning a back story mythology to their work.

It seems at least two of its members are poised to take things a step further.  Kelvin 'Posdnous' Mercer and David Jude 'Dave/Trugoy' Jolicoeur are in fact presenting First Serve as an entirely new band ; a press releases describes it as "...a dynamic hip-hop group, an album, a concept, the soundtrack to a movie that has yet to be made and a fable for our times."

In the cartoonish alternate-reality seen in this comical YouTube sketch, they are Deen Whittier (Dave), and Jacob 'Pop Life' Barrrow (Pos), two young friends from Queens, New York, with "...big dreams and larger rhymes (press release)." Hunkered down in Deen's mother's basement, the pair--which bear a striking resemblance at times to Rick Ross and will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas--have just hit the big time, signing a record contract with 'Goon Time Records' (another veiled shot at the mainstream music biz?). Both their costumed alter-egos and the dance-friendly first single, "Must B the Music," have many thinking that the entire First Serve project is to serve as one big middle finger to the industry at large (not totally unfamiliar territory to De La), but one listen to the laid back, expertly-sampled "Pushin' Aside, Pushin' Along" (below), have many others thinking differently:
  De La Soul's Plug 1 & Plug 2 present First Serve - Pushin' Aside, Pushin' Along by FIRST SERVE

De La Soul's Plug 1 & Plug 2 Present...First Serve is due for release on April 2nd through Duck Down Music