Deborah Mannis-Gardner was included on the 2024 Billboard Women In Music list.

Before last year, if fans wanted to listen to one of De La Soul’s critically acclaimed albums from the ’90s, eBay or torrent sites were their best bets. Now, thanks to Mannis-Gardner, fans simply have to open their streaming service of choice. The “queen of sample clearances” — who also worked on Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé this past year — connected with Reservoir to detangle and clear the thicket of samples used on the legendary New York group’s first four albums. “This is a key part of hip-hop history that younger generations simply did not have access to for far too long,” Mannis-Gardner says. “And it’s fitting that we were able to fill that void on the 50th anniversary of the genre.”