Pitchfork

It's official: You can't accuse De La Soul of being in it for the filthy lucre. Fresh off 2004's The Grind Date-- the album's success a stinging rebuke to those faithless Tommy Boy suits who didn't bother to tell the contrarian trio that its contract had been fire-sold-- what's their next move? Maybe the ubiquitous small-theater tour with the album's dream team of producers and MCs, complete with a de rigeur live rhythm section that helps the mid-30s rockist justify dropping a couple of 10-spots for a ticket? That'd be the career-savvy move, right?

Get this: Not only will almost every date on their March tour be accompanied by a free hip-hop symposium at a local university, but the shows themselves carry a ticket price of $1.20 (not a typo). The venerable Posdnuos told Billboard that De La has "wanted to do something like this for awhile. We're fans of hip-hop and to have the opportunity to talk to young people about what's so powerful in hip-hop-- its history and what's going on right now-- is the coolest thing we could be doing." The jaunt is called "The Past, The Present, The Future Tour", and De La Soul promises "additional surprises," including but not limited to guest spots by A Tribe Called Quest's Phife Dawg, Scarface, Raphael Saadiq, and Dwele. The dates and the places:

03-02 Washington, DC - Blackburn Center (symposium)
03-02 Washington, DC - Lincoln Theatre (performance)
03-03 Baltimore, MD - Morgan St. University (symposium)
03-04 Philadelphia, PA - Lincoln University (symposium)
03-04 Philadelphia, PA - Kimmel Center (performance)
03-06 New York, NY - Spirit (performance)
03-07 Newark, NJ - Rutgers University (symposium)
03-08 St. Louis, MO - Washington University (symposium)
03-08 St. Louis, MO - Fox Theatre (performance)
03-09 Detroit, MI - African-American Museum of History (performance)
03-10 Detroit, MI - Wayne St. University (symposium)
03-11 Houston, TX - Texas Southern University (symposium)
03-11 Houston, TX - Jones Hall (performance)
03-21 Chicago, IL - Columbia College (symposium)
03-23 Atlanta, GA - Clark University (symposium)
03-23 Atlanta, GA - Woodruff Arts Center (performance)
03-28 Las Vegas, NV - UNLV (symposium)
03-28 Las Vegas, NV - Ra (performance)
03-30 Los Angeles, CA - USC (symposium)
03-30 Los Angeles, CA - Director's Guild of America (performance)