At the Grammy Awards last month, the rap trio De La Soul was booked for the show’s 50th anniversary tribute to hip-hop, alongside more than two dozen performers.
The timing was perfect, coming just a few weeks ahead of the long-delayed digital release of the group’s storied catalog.
But the day before the ceremony, David Jolicoeur, who was known as Trugoy the Dove — and had long been public about having congestive heart failure — told his bandmates he was too ill to make it; Vincent Mason, a.k.a.
Maseo, the group’s D.J., also had health problems.
Another painful victory for De La Soul arrives on Friday, when the group’s first six albums will finally become available on streaming services after years of struggles with record companies that have kept that music — one of hip-hop’s most cherished and influential bodies of work — largely inaccessible to longtime fans, and invisible to younger audiences.