The Grind Date by De La Soul
The Grind Date is the seventh album from hip-hop group De La Soul, released on October 5, 2004. The album was originally intended to be the final album of the Art Official Intelligence (AOI) trilogy, but as the album quickly changed focus, the group decided to put AOI III on hold and finish The Grind Date as its own work. The Grind Date is a notably brisker, and leaner work than the group's previous albums, and features a top of the line array of production talents including the late J Dilla (who was part of A Tribe Called Quest's production unit, The Ummah), Madlib ("Shopping Bags (She Got From You)"), and 9th Wonder ("Church"). Producer Supa Dave West, who handled the majority of the AOI albums, also contributes five tracks to the album. "Rock Co.Kane Flow" featuring MF DOOM, was produced by Jake One, and sees Posdnuos addressing some recent trends in Hip hop with the line "Unlike them, we craft gems / so systematically inclined to pen lines / without sayin a producer's name, all over the track". The well received collaboration also brought attention to the then-unknown Jake One. The album is light on guest appearances and features a total of four guest MCs, including Common. Unlike every De La Soul album before it, The Grind Date contains no skits at all, although a short musical interlude does precede the first song "The Future". The album's conceptual cover and sleeve booklet, based on a 2005 calendar, was designed by Morning Breath Inc.
Liberated from long-time record label Tommy Boy, De La Soul completed their original 15-year run of studio albums with 2004’s <i>The Grind Date</i>, an album where the legacy act tells the raw realities of a never-ending hustle. “I got verb skills, babies and bills,” Posdnous raps on an album about label gripes, “white-collar dreams” and basically treating rap like a job. (As Trugoy the Dove says, “I’m coal-mining these mics to keep that gold nugget.”) And, for the first time, they opened a majority of an album to outside producers, enlisting J Dilla, Madlib, 9th Wonder and Jake One, whose unlikely decelerating beat on “Rock Co.Kane Flow” is the album’s highlight. A 20th anniversary reissue released in 2025 (yes, that’s 21 years, but De La Soul have never had an easy time getting their music out when they preferred) restores a skit and a handful of extra tracks and instrumental versions.
