“We’re always trying to think of something cool, whether it’s internally inside, or externally cool.”

That’s Posdnous, a.k.a. Kelvin Mercer, discussing the creative process De La Soul undertake whenever the alt-hip-hop pioneers put their records together. (He’s the middle man in the above De La photo, flanked by Maseo and Trugoy.) Recently, De La Soul have been focusing on repackaging and upgrading some of their most classic material on vinyl—such as recognizing the 20th anniversary of their October 2004 opus The Grind Date by adding instrumentals and studio session outtakes galore to expand it into a 2LP set—and now, they’ve begun adding Dolby Atmos to their literal catalog options mix as well. (A 2CD Grind Date option is available too, for all you De La completists out there.)

Before we dive into the full De La immersiveness of it all—or, to modify a line from one of the forever coolest songs from their February 1989 debut on Tommy Boy, 3 Feet High and Rising, “360, that’s the magic number”—do yourself a favor and seek out The Grind Date on double splatter vinyl, and also try, if you can, to obtain the limited-edition, gel-sleeved, sea-green vinyl edition of their long-lost 1994 DJ-centric EP, Clear Lake Auditorium. (BMG re-dropped Grind in March 2025, just around the same time Chrysalis took care of resupplying Clear Lake.)

In recent months, five of De La Soul’s earliest albums have been made available in Atmos—namely, 1989’s aforementioned 3 Feet High and Rising, May 1991’s De La Soul Is Dead, September 1993’s Buhloone Mindstate, July 1996’s Stakes Is High, and December 2001’a AOI: Bionix, with more certain to follow. All five of those albums are available in Atmos now on Apple Music, while only Dead appears in full in Atmos on Tidal. (Tidal also offers a separate, 90-minute, 20-track “De La Soul: Dolby Atmos” playlist, with just a few Dead overlaps.)

In the physical realm, Chrysalis released a limited edition 3 Feet High and Rising Blu-ray via Super Deluxe Edition as entry No. 43 in the British company’s most excellent, ongoing SDE Surround Series back on July 18, 2025, with an SRP of £25, and it quickly sold out. (I ordered mine post-haste, once I was notified of the restock about a month later. As of presstime, the 3 Feet BD remains sold out, though reasonably priced copies of it can be found through Discogs.)

The BD offers three listening options for 3 Feet: a) 24-bit/48kHz high-resolution stereo; b) 24/48 5.1 surround sound; and c) 24/48 Atmos, each of them being new mixes mastered by Rich Keller, who expands upon the original, and quite potent, Prince Paul stereo productions that were initially recorded and mixed by Scotty Hard.

Without giving too much away, listening to the full majesty of 3 Feet in Atmos is like experiencing a new Christmas/holiday-of-your-choice gift every single day of the year. In Atmos, the beats, rhymes, skits (“Contestant No. 3, do you have the answer?”), and beyond-inventive samples woven together by De La stalwarts Posdnous, Trugoy The Dove, and Maseo, along with the added touches courtesy the above-noted producer nonpareil Prince Paul, remain as fresh as anything you’ll hear in the here and now. (This is a recording, indeed. . .)

Sadly, Trugoy, a.k.a. David Jude Jolicoeur, passed away at age 54 in February 2023, but De La continue ever onward, with Pos and Maseo at the helm. To that end, De La do as De La does by continuing to look forward, even amidst all the catalog revisiting at hand. “Oh yeah, we stay working on new music,” Pos confirmed with me directly before adding, “and, God willing, something new will be out soon.” I, for one, can’t wait for the next exciting Freedom of Speak De La chapter to come.

On a recent Zoom call, Posdnous, 56, and I got down to discussing the good vibes of all that good ol’ De La Soul magic being transformed into the full 360, the “gumbo” approach to their layering skills, and where they got that ding at the end of De La Soul Is Dead. (I mean, c’mon—I just had to know!) The past and the present and the future / Give you three as a magic number. . .

Mike Mettler: Pos, you must absolutely love being able to finally hear De La Soul music mixed in Dolby Atmos, right?

Posdnous: Definitely! It was really cool when we were preparing the catalog to be released in Atmos. I was sitting down with our engineer, Rich Keller, who was very heavily involved in helping us with the Atmos experience. I mean, it’s incredible, even just seeing the studios that are now coming about to deal solely with those type of mixes.

When I was in Fort Lauderdale, I would go into the studio and just sit there and go, “Wow. I’m listening to Marvin Gaye in Atmos—and it’s heavy.” It’s amazing how your mind reacts. When you’re used to hearing him sing this part, or hearing a particular instrument you’ve heard all your life in the song a certain way, but now you’re hearing it panned this way [points left] or it’s whizzing that way [points right]—it’s just a whole ’nother amazing experience to add to something that was already a part of your life.

Mettler: Totally—especially when it’s done right. I’m not making any great revelation by saying we live in 360 degrees anyway, after all.

Posdnous: Yeah, that’s right—we do.

Mettler: No matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’re listening to stuff all the way around you—and even if it’s a stereo mix, it’s coming toward you, and then the sound is going behind you, and around you. It’s just the natural decay of sound. You guys know all about how to do that in such interesting ways—and you’re also giving us a physical, tactile way of experiencing it too.

Posdnous: Definitely. And yeah, we’re giving you the physical Blu-ray for 3 Feet. Having the physical is just a special experience, man—just like with the vinyl we did for The Grind Date and Clear Lake [Auditorium]. There’s nothing else like it when you’re talking about experiencing music by physically being a part of it, opposed to just allowing it to be at your own ears. You use your fingertips to grab it, to touch it, to experience it. There’s nothing like it.

Mettler: I totally agree. I mean, just the fact that, on 3 Feet, “Me Myself and I” is technically a three-dimensional song title (Pos laughs)—well, I’m glad you’re embracing Atmos, because when it comes to the stereo field, you guys have always challenged it, and pushed it. And the samples you used—like, we get James Brown over here, and a John Bonham drum beat over there—set the standard. The way you mixed everything up always makes me want to relisten to 3 Feet over and over so I can sometimes focus on what Maseo is doing over here, or what the background singers are doing there, or just hearing something that’s truly unique and going, “Where did that come from?” You guys are masters of layering samples.

Posdnous: (laughs again) We definitely supplied a bunch of them. And, you know, it wasn’t even something we did purposely—the layering, I mean. I would just always try to give [producer] Prince Paul so much respect with that. Paul was big into saying, “Don’t allow your own ideas about what you feel how the music or the song should sound cheat someone else from trying to have their ideas included in there.” We became a true think tank in allowing everyone to try to be a part of it, so it just became a beautiful gumbo of layering.

And like you said, people be like, “Yo, I listened to this song more than 90 times, and it was only on the hundredth that I realized that’s something that only happens right there in the song, and nowhere else.” (smiles)

Mettler: That’s the beauty of sound construction, isn’t it? Now, it’s probably hard to say, but could you zero in on one or two tracks that would stand out like, “If you really wanna hear the best of De la Soul, play tracks blank and blank”? Or is that impossible to do?

Posdnous: It’s not that it’s impossible—but, believe it or not, I feel like it’s the skits on Bionix—the skits! We spent so much time on them, designing those skits.

It’s really like an inside joke. We laugh so much about it—like, “Yo, we spent more time on the skits than the records!” (both laugh) We, of course, put a lot of care into the actual songs, but on those Ghost Weed skits [on August 2000’s Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump], and the Rev. Do Good skits [on December 2001’s AOI: Bionix]—like, just putting in the perfect birds, and the perfect wind so it sounds like they’re walking outside a church, and they’re standing out there with the kids [in “Rev. Do Good #3,” on AOI: Bionix]—oh man, that made it all sound so good! And like you said, there is just so much sound design going on there.

Mettler: Yeah, so you just gotta keep topping yourself is all—no big deal, right? (both laugh) Well, since we’ve also got [May 1991’s] De La Soul Is Dead in Atmos, I absolutely have to ask you about the doorbell that rings near the very end of the album, right when “Skit 5” kicks in. I mean, is it actually a doorbell, or is it an elevator ding? What is it?

Posdnous: I don’t know! Well, it’s definitely a ding that we got from like an old kiddies record. Remember those? You’d get the ding when they told you to turn the page, like (exclaims): doong!

Mettler: (laughs) It’s so funny you say that! I remember how we were conditioned to turn the pages of those Little Golden Books, or whatever they were called. . .

Posdnous: Right—the Peter Pan Records, the show-and-tell records.

Mettler: Yeah! Isn’t that something? And here I am, thinking you guys went to an elevator and punched a button, or hit the bell at a doorman’s desk or something, to sample it.

Posdnous: (continues laughing) No no, we got it from a kiddies record.

Mettler: And that’s just the kind of detail we’re listening for in Atmos! Well, to wrap things up, what do you want the legacy of De La Soul to be for future generations who cue up your music in, say, 50 years or more from now?

Posdnous:  I just feel that our music is so lively, and it’s colorful, and no matter what year you’re in, that it’s still something that moves your senses.

If you had someone from the 1930s come here and listen to it—or even have someone from like 2078 come and listen to it—I want it to be the same way how our music has been blessed to touch people, and they get the type of creativity we chose to put into how it sounds. I think it’s gonna move them the same way. If that listening device is now buried in your brain and it can just hit your pineal gland, or something crazy like that (MM laughs)—that’s all that matters, you know what I’m saying?

So, when it hits you, I think it’s still gonna give you goosebumps. It’s still gonna touch your spine. It’s going to still be received in a positive way.

De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising can be listened to in Dolby Atmos here on Apple Music. (You can also scroll down and click on “Essential Albums” in their Artist menu space to access De La’s other four album-length Atmos mixes.)