Who said De La Soul is Dead? And neither is Hip-Hop!

MC Posdnous and Dave and DJ Maseo of De La Soul are getting prepared to release not just one but two new albums in 2004. In the meantime, they're on a tour that brings them to clubs across Canada.

"We've been in the studio completing two albums," says Posdnous from Edmonton. "One is the third Art Official Intelligence album, which is more of a tribute to the DJs, with only one or two songs with Dave and me rhyming. We didn't want to cheat the public, though, so the other is a straight De La Soul album with us all over it."

Pos says "It's all business rather than creativity," he says. "But focusing on the negative doesn't make it go away. You have to focus on the positive, and help bring it to the forefront.

Like OutKast's Andree 3000, Pos laments the current state of hip-hop, but are less reluctant to give up on it altogether.

De La Soul currently has a new song out called "Much More" produced by Jay Dee which is based on the classic R&B song "Love Ballad" by LTD.