May 13 marks the anniversary of the De La Soul 1991 release of “De La Soul Is Dead” which is being celebrated by Nike with a re-release of De La Soul’s shoe

Legendary rap group De La Soul is working on a new album and they call it “The Most Exciting Project That They’ve Ever Done”. This time around Posdnuos, Trugoy, and PA Pasemaster Mase will be sampling themselves and linking up with some of their own favorite acts.

We have a fantastic cast of artists we’re collaborating with. So far Damon Albarn (of Blur/Gorillaz), 2 Chainz, Little Dragon, and David Byrne (of Talking Heads) have blessed us with their talents; and we’ll have more announcements of collabs to come.”

Outside of working on their highly anticipated new project, May 13th is a special date for De La Soul as it marks the anniversary of the 1991 release of “De La Soul is Dead”. It was their second full length project and one of the first albums to ever receive five mics in The Source Magazine. The Long Island natives’ influence transcended music. Their eclectic and out of this planet nature was embraced on a cross-cultural level and worshiped by the anti-conformist skateboarding crowd who pledge allegiance to the individuality that De La Soul has always represented. De La Soul’s swag and style made an impression on the Marketing geniuses at Nike who didn’t abandoned their hip hop roots just because they got bachelor degreed-up and entered corporate America.

In 2005, Nike was smart enough to understand the commercial appeal of Hip Hop that Tupac said would set the precedence of cool in mainstream society. Phil Knight’s (Owner of Nike) marketing and PR team released the De La Soul dunk high premium SB in honor of the group. This became one of Nike’s most successful collaboration to date. Nike is now re-releasing the De La Soul in a low version on May 16th, commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the original and in celebration of “De La Soul is Dead”. Nike says,

The new Dunk is an all-new high version complete in premium white leather with vinyl holographic uppers once again featuring 3 Feet High’s iconic album cover artwork.”

Fans can keep up with updates of the De La Soul’s new project here: KickStarter

-Abesi Manyando (@abesipr)