Copyright pitchfork
De La Soul have officially announced the new album Cabin in the Sky. The group’s follow-up to 2016’s And the Anonymous Nobody... is out November 21 via Mass Appeal. Leading the 20-track effort is the Pete Rock–produced single “The Package.” Listen to the new song below; scroll down to see the album cover by artist Hebru Brantley. Cabin in the Sky is the first album from De La Soul since the 2023 death of David Jude Jolicoeur, the founding member who was also known as Trugoy, Dave, and Trugoy the Dove. It features contributions from producers DJ Premier, Super Dave, and Pete Rock, as well as guests Killer Mike, Little Dragon’s Yukimi, Common, Nas, and the Roots’ Black Thought. “Cabin in the Sky lives in that space between loss and light,” Posdnuos said in a press release. “It’s about the pain we carry and the joy that somehow still finds us. This album is therapy and celebration at the same time. There’s a vulnerability in these songs, because everything we’ve been through has brought us to this moment, to this album, honoring what we’ve lost and lifting up what still remains. That duality. That’s life, and that’s De La.” In an additional statement to Pitchfork, Posdnuos explained that he and Maseo started working on Cabin in the Sky in February 2025 after Mass Appeal’s Peter Bittenbender approached them about participating in the label’s “Legend Has It” campaign. “We had some music, of course, with Dave’s voice on it, like ‘Good Health,’ that was produced by Supa Dave West,” Posdnuous said, “‘The Package,’ which was produced by Pete Rock, which was originally supposed to be a part of an idea for an album we had called Premium Soul on the Rocks that would have been exclusively produced by Pete and Premier. And then we had the song ‘Pattycake,’ which was produced by Jake One. That was just something we had did a while back.” “So those are the tracks we chose to use,” he continued. “At first, with some of the tracks we did have with Dave’s voice on it, we thought to maybe have certain producers now make music to it, but then we just realized, you know what, let’s leave those tracks as is. With the energy that Dave had written to that track, let’s allow that marriage to still exist.” “It was my mission to make sure that Dave’s true energy was felt throughout the entire record,” Posdnuous added. “So, there was a beat he had played for me and the producer Supa Dave West during the pandemic that he had just made at the house. And he just kept saying, ‘Ya don’t stop,’ throughout the track, and just going for about 30 seconds and he’s just saying, ‘Ya don’t stop.’ So I just figured, like, you know what, this could be a cool way to start the album off, and so I extended that track that Dave made, put lyrics to it with his voice throughout it as he’s kind of the heartbeat of the track and the motivation of keeping me moving, so that’s why on that track, ‘Ya Don’t Stop,’ you’re just constantly hearing Dave saying, ‘Ya don’t stop.’ So that was a track that he actually produced himself.” Posdnuous went on to explain that Trugoy produced another song on Cabin in the Sky that samples Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” and he also worked on the new album’s final song, “Don’t Push Me.” “That was a way of just having not only his be heard,” he said, “but his music production be felt throughout the album.” As Posdnuous noted, Cabin in the Sky is part of a Mass Appeal series that has celebrated some of the giants of New York hip-hop. Through campaign, there have been new albums from Slick Rick, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Mobb Deep, and the late Big L. The label is planning one more record, a collaboration between Nas and DJ Premier.
