Madlib - The Crate Digger

                

Madlib is an innovative and prolific hip hop producer. He is widely respected by fans of the genre as one of the best producers of all time. His music has a unique sound that sets him apart from anybody else within the genre, so I wanted to look at some of his career’s progression, some of his methods for creating music, and some of my favorite work of his.

            

Madlib was born Otis Jackson Jr. on October 24^th, 1973 in Oxnard, California. Both of his parents were musicians, so he was exposed to a lot of different music at a young age. He started producing hip hop music in the early 90’s, and his music was first commercially released in 1993. Over the years he engineered his own unique sounding hip hop music by sampling parts of old records, reworking the sample, and adding his own sound built around it. Madlib is known for his extensive discography, with over 50 records released across all of the names he goes by. Some of his highest regarded works are collaborations with artists like J Dilla (as Jaylib), MF DOOM (as Madvillain), and his recently released collaboration album Pinata with Freddie Gibbs. In a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone he said the reason he wanted to work with Freddie Gibbs was because “He does musically a lot of the stuff that I try to do as a producer. He’s capable of doing everything, but he’s interested in being original and not sounding like all the other stuff on the radio.” (Weiss)

Madlib and Freddie Gibbs, who recently released the collaboration album "Pinata" in March

Madlib has such a unique sound because he immerses himself in all different kinds of music. When you listen to one of his tracks you can pick up all different kinds of musical influences that are put into his music. In a 2014 interview with Dazed Digital, Madlib said the thing that drives his extensive record collection is “The love of music,” continuing “Basically my whole life is music, that’s all I do 24-7. I’m always doing music or listening to music. I’ll take two months off just to listen to records and not do any music so I can absorb all that and then when I go do my music it’s all in me. I’ll listen to a different genre every two days or something, study it, 24 hours straight. It’s just in me. I wanted to be like a librarian, that’s what the whole goal was. When I die they might look at my record collection like that, you never know.” (Noakes)

Madlib among some of his record collection.

            

I will leave you with a couple of my favorite tracks produced by Madlib.

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Robes – ft. Earl Sweatshirt & Domo Genesis

Madvillain – All Caps Instrumental

Madvillain – Curls Instrumental


Works Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madlib

Noakes, Tim. "A Rare Encounter with Madlib." Dazed Digital. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.

Weiss, Jeff. "QA: Madlib on the Return of Quasimoto" Rolling Stone. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.

Multimedia Links
https://soundcloud.com/rappcats/freddie-gibbs-madlib-robes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wchianznJVc
http://grooveshark.com/s/Curls+Instrumental/30CNiA?src=5
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kz3562DMER1qzz49fo1_400.jpg
http://dayandadream.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/freddie-gibbs-madlib-2.jpg