De La Soul taps the crowd to fund new studio album

Iconic hip-hop group De La Soul is planning its first studio album in 11 years, and the trio is turning to fans to help fund the effort. Damon Albarn, 2 Chainz, Little Dragon and David Byrne have all been announced as collaborators, with more details to unfold as the campaign continues.

The band is accustomed to having a relationship with fans: in 2014 they marked the 25th anniversary of debut album "3 Feet High and Rising" by offering up seven albums as free downloads.

According to the campaign page, the new album will incorporate jazz, funk, rock, country western "and anything else we're feeling in the moment."

And, in an interesting twist, they'll be aiming to avoid what they call the "sample police" by sampling themselves, drawing from around 200 hours of recordings they've made over the last three years with LA studio musicians.

"What we've done is created our own crates of records; album upon albums to mine and sample from. In our world, what we've created is freedom, freedom to make the art you believe in without having to compromise your vision."

The band's Kickstarter campaign has earned more than 2,000 backers and well surpassed its goal with more than a month to go. Naturally, there are gifts to be had, from a 1GB USB thumb drive pre-loaded with the album and a Kickstarter-exclusive bonus track ($30 or more) to chances to have dinner with the band ($2,500), hang out with them backstage ($5,000) or record a skit with them for the album ($7,500).

For $65 or more, the band will follow you on Twitter and periodically retweet your best tweets through 2015.

So why does an established band turn to crowdfunding?

"Typically the fans have been the ones who support and appreciate our vision, so using Kickstarter and giving our fans the opportunity to be a part of the process just feels right," reads De La Soul campaign page.

De La Soul has been independent -- that is, not attached to a record label -- for the past decade and, as they say, "It's been essential that we find ways to fund, record and release new music."

They join several acts to launch successful campaigns for fan-funded music in recent years. The most notable of late is no doubt 1990s R&B trio TLC, whose two remaining members announced a campaign in January that earned $430,255 and drew celebrity backers.

De La Soul on Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/1519102394/de-la-souls-new-album