Three has always been "The Magic Number" for hip hop trio De La Soul. But, with one voice gone, how do you keep making the magic?
Founding member David Jude "Trugoy the Dove" Jolicoeur passed away in 2023. It was at his memorial where his sister, Cindy, gave the surviving De La Soul members, Kelvin "Posdnuos" Mercer and Vincent "Maseo" Mason, the motivation to continue on.
"If y'all stop, then Dave stops," Mercer remembers Cindy saying. "Cindy said, you know what? I don't know what you and Mase were thinking, but the family have been talking and we would love for y'all to keep going," he tells NPR's Lauren Frayer for Weekend Edition Sunday. "Me and Mase had already had a similar conversation. So to have the blessing of his family, it was just all guns ahead from that point on."
It took almost two years, but the result is De La Soul's latest album, Cabin in the Sky, a celebration of Jolicoeur and a way to honor his legacy.
"It was very important for us to make sure that the quality of what De La [Soul] has been known for remained," Mercer says. Many of the songs on Cabin in the Sky include vocals and rhymes Jolicoeur recorded years earlier. Others lean on beats he produced, like the track "YUDONTSTOP," where Mercer raps about that conversation with Jolicoeur's sister at his memorial.
Yet, honoring Jolicoeur also meant ensuring the music they created together could reach new listeners. About a month after his death, De La Soul's first six albums released on music streaming platforms, a milestone long delayed because of copyright issues surrounding samples used in their songs.
"I really know how much damage it did for people to not know that music," Mercer says. Those early albums were left out of the digital music era, meaning today's younger generations of De La Soul's listeners couldn't discover the group's older and foundational work. Even when "The Magic Number" became a pop culture touchstone – appearing in Marvel's Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021 – the song wasn't available to stream until two years later.
"However your music is available, whether it's through streaming or being played in a movie or TV show, it becomes the soundtrack for someone's life to make our catalog continue to matter. Not only to the people who were there from the beginning, but the younger people who come on later," Mercer says.
Despite the challenges, Cabin in the Sky maintains De La Soul's signature sound. The title track blends a Moog synthesizer riff with vocals from Boston's "More Than a Feeling." Over that patchwork, Mercer reflects on Jolicoeur's passing, the broader ache of losing loved ones, and his own mortality. "Still in disbelief, lost my brother Dave // But what keeps me sane from the grief // Is to stay rooted in if the winds gets severe // Every line in the song holds love in the tears," he raps.
Mercer says he's been moved by listener reactions, many of whom find the song deeply relatable. "When I wrote those rhymes I was crying. You know it's therapy. And I'm glad that people feel that it can be therapy for them as well."
Cabin in the Sky is De La Soul honoring what was, embracing what is, and carrying forward the magic that – even now – remains unbreakably three.
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