Detroit native Black Milk has been an active producer/rapper since 2002 as a member of hip-hop collective Slum Village. Production-wise, Black’s modus operandi can be described as Dilla-esque, but he doesn’t really imitate the late legend as much as utilize Dilla’s crate-digging approach to composition as a vantage point, which then gives Black an opportunity […]

DVA: Where I Belong (Hyperdub 2012) from Hyperdub on Vimeo. DVA has seen it all: from the Jungle/D&B era to the rise and fall of Garage to Grime and Dubstep’s worldwide takeover, the London producer, engineer, DJ and radio-host has been present whether in the spotlight or shadows. In this exclusive interview Son Raw and […]

Art by Simon Laroche It’s now ten months since Passion of the Weiss’s Aaron Frank interviewed Charles Bradley. Since then, the sexagenarian has gone from blogosphere curio to mover on the modern soul scene. Before his return to Australia this month, I chatted to Bradley about how life’s changed since the release of his epic debut […]

Jimmy Ness‘ favorite concreature is the griffin. Boldy James avoided stale drug dealing clichés and showed he had a knack for gritty storytelling on last year’s mixtape “Trappers Alley: Pros and Cons.” The Detroit rapper exposed his guilty conscience over warped soul production and showed an unheard side to hustling. James spoke through a thick […]

Grammy award-winning super producer Bangladesh earned his first big break when he produced several tracks (including the lascivious “What’s Your Fantasy) on Ludacris’ triple-platinum debut album, Back For The First Time. Bangladesh’s trademark bass-heavy compositions, which range from gritty, trunk-rattling thump—such as Lil Wayne’s “A Milli” and Gucci Mane’s “Lemonade”– to sprightly nightclub fare, like […]

Detroit native Skylar Tait AKA SKYWLKR made his name last year by producing the bulk of Danny Brown’s critically acclaimed album XXX. Recently named one of the FADER’s 5 producers to watch in 2012, Sky crafts blunted, psychedelic beats that sound like nothing else. In an interview conducted for our XXX making-of feature, SKY discusses […]

Some dismissed Mayer Hawthorne’s debut, A Strange Arrangement as overly contrived. But the record was truly one of the great growers of 2009, helped in no small measure by Stones Throw Records and Hawthorne’s vintage connoisseur taste. Not to mention, Hawthorne’s  rare knack for pleasantly deluding people into believing that they could do what he […]

One half of Crown Nation, Detroit spitter/producer Quelle Chris (@quellechris) does double duty as minimal synth one-man band Awesome in Outerspace and a zonked-out rap wonderkind with a lot to say for himself. His excellent album Shotgun and Sleek Rifle got substantial burn around these part. Since we already got him on the line for […]

Sometimes your mission finds you. For Daniel Sewell, a Black-Filipino kid from Linwood, Detroit, his career was never a choice. Danny never learned how to rap, words came together in his head even at elementary school age. Borrowing the name of his favorite Reservoir Dogs character, Danny Brown found joy ripping into the twisted corners […]

There’s something brewing with Portishead. After the release of Third in 2008, the Bristol-based trio lay relatively low, focusing more on family and pet projects than driving the wheels off the tour van. But over last summer Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons and Adrian Utley began to again make their presence felt, packing in a hectic […]