DJ Shadow and De La Soul delivered an electrifying performance of their collaboration “Rocket Fuel” on Jimmy Kimmel Live Tuesday.
The appearance marked De La Soul and DJ Shadow’s first live performance together, and they were joined on stage by a lively five-piece horn section and top turntablists DJ Babu of Dilated Peoples and DJ Melo D of Beat Junkies. De La Soul cheerfully traded bars as they ripped through “Rocket Fuel,” getting an assist from the crowd on the song’s very hype hook — halfway through, Shadow led Babu and Melo D through a blistering scratch breakdown.
Last week, DJ Shadow and De La Soul unveiled a new video for “Rocket Fuel,” which jokingly plays around with moon landing conspiracies. The song appears on Shadow’s new album, Our Pathetic Age, which arrived last Friday and follows the DJ-producer’s 2016 LP, The Mountain Will Fall.
Our Pathetic Age is notably broken into two sections, with the first part comprising new instrumentals — including DJ Shadow’s first fully composed orchestral piece — and the second boasting a set of vocal collaborations. Along with De La Soul, the album features appearances from Run the Jewels, Nas, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, Paul Banks, Wiki and Shadow’s early Solesides collaborators Lateef the Truthseeker and Gift of Gab.