The Night I Dissed De La Soul

Several years back Maseo a.k.a. Plug Three from De La Soul did a DJ set at a club in St. Louis and I made it a point to go despite the club where the event was held charging way to much for drinks. At this time I was also selling a mixtape I was pretty proud of called The College Graduate Mixtape. Since I know I could probably make some money selling this tape at an event like this, I made sure to throw some copies in my bag.

I got to the club, had a beer, and talked to some girls one of which who wound up being my girlfriend. I went to say "what up" to my homeboy DJ Needles and he was standing next to somebody else I recognized. It was Posdnuos a.k.a. Plug One who is one of my favorite emcees. Now, for those of you who do know I worked in commercial radio for several years so I got a chance to meet my share of artists most of which I did not give a shit about. So when I get to meet someone whose music I actually like, it is a big deal. I shook his hand, had a short back and forth about how much I dig his music and before it turned weird I gave him a copy of my mixtape which had "Much More" on it and kept it moving.

Now, I remember Pos looking at the tracklist of my tape and not seeming all that happy about the free promotion. Fast forward a few months and it all became clear. The song I mixed with "Much More" was a Ghostface Killa track called "Tony's Money" which had the same BPM. What I didn't know was "Tony's Money" was a diss track about De La Soul not paying him for the song that eventually became "He Comes" which was featured on The Grind Date. The verse that wound up on De La Soul's album is the same as the one Ghostface uses on "Tony's Money" but he changed the chorus and goes on a nice little rant at the start of the song about how he does not care about producers and that if you don't pay him his money, he will murder you (create a better rhyme than you) on your own track! Sure, I did not mean to insult De La Soul and I am pretty sure Pos knew that but I am also pretty sure Pos took that CD and threw it in the trash.