The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival is underway at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. Par for the course, there’ve been plenty of notable moments. On Friday night (April 14), Gorillaz surprised fans with an appearance from De La Soul legends Posdnuos and Maseo. The two were on deck to perform “Feel Good Inc” from Gorillaz’s 2005 album, Demon Days. The song was co-written by fellow De La Soul member David “Trugoy The Dove” Jolicoeur, who died unexpectedly in February.
The performance began with Maseo laughing maniacally into the mic just as he does on the original song. Damon Albarn then started singing his verse while Pos and Maseo hyped up the audience.
Undoubtedly they were all thinking about Trugoy. After all, the wounds are still fresh. Trugoy died on February 12, just weeks before De La Soul’s first six albums were finally made available on DSPs. The timing of his death felt unnecessarily cruel, given their hard-won victory. It took years of stalled negations to get their masters back from Tommy Boy Records, their original label.
On March 3, 3 Feet High & Rising, De La Soul is Dead, Buhloone Mindstate, Stakes Is High, AIO: The Mosaic Thump and AOI: Bionix landed with a loud thud. The demand for De La Soul music was palpable. A week later, 3 Feet High & Rising was back on the Billboard 200, 34 years after its release.
Gorillaz also brought out Del The Funky Homosapien for “Clint Eastwood,” Thundercat for “Cracker Island” and the Pharcyde’s B##### Brown for “New Gold,” among others. Watch the clip above.