De La Soul’s French ”sucks,” even though they recorded their latest album in Paris.
The legendary rap groups’ Posdnuos and Dave teamed up with French producers 2 & 4 – aka Chokolate and Khalid – to create new project, ‘First Serve’, and despite spending time in the country’s capital they didn’t find the language easy to pick up.
Dave exclusively told BANG Showbiz: ”My French sucks, I know no French, I don’t know nothing. I can say, ‘bonjour’, ‘au revoir’, that’s it!”
The project was a challenge for the producers too, as it took them out of the comfort zone of making house music and challenged them to come up with hip-hop tracks.
Khalid said: ”French producers are famous for dance music, and it was a challenge for us to then step into the hip-hop arena and make an album with these guys, for the world. It is the first time I think for a French producer to do this. It’s not French Touch, its French Coast!”
The album – which is a concept record charting the plight of a pair of budding young fictional rappers – doesn’t feature the third member of De La Soul, Maseo, but Dave said he has given it his ”blessing”
He added: ”These guys were looking for lyrics, and that’s the bottom line, and Mase has given it his blessing. He likes the project, he likes the concept, he’s laughing, he thinks its humorous.”
‘De La Soul Presents: First Serve’ is released on April 2.