One of the benefits of being prolific is that no matter how large you get, there’s a part of your catalog that will always remain secret(e). It’s something everyone from Wayne to Lil B has cultivated and has allowed them to sustain a serious connection with their audience despite their mass appeal.  Madlib is no […]

Aesthetic by-laws require this song seeing the light of day (or its low-budget blog equivalent). The reasons are obvious. A superior flip of The Meters “Handclapping Song” (take that will.i.am.), shouts courtesy of M.O.P., and long-buried audio footage of Dilla and Madlib talking shit for three minutes. The track comes from the sessions from their […]

By virtue of (Charlie) Murphy’s law, low-budget Hi-Fi music will always reign supreme over low-budget lo-fi. Somewhere Wavves is absorbing the shots subliminally fired by the title of Madlib’s latest Medicine Show: Low-Budget Hi-Fi Music. One of the most overlooked things in Otis Jackson’s bizarro record-a-month odyssey has been the artwork, iconography, and distinct worlds […]

Granted, it’s not nearly as good as a new Madvillain record, but my long-promised Madlib feature hit newsstands today — complete with anecdotes about smoking blunts of Lucas Valley Haze, falling out of chairs, and about a half-dozen blown interview appointments. Hopefully,  I’ll post the full Q&A transcript at some point in the next week, […]

My much postponed (through no fault of my own) feature on Madlib drops within a month, featuring revelations of Masonic Lodges, Mexican Bakeries, and Madvillain updates. When I spoke to the greatest Otis since Nixon (and maybe Redding) several months ago, he told me that Madvillain was almost complete. I’m not sure I believe him. […]

Despite the ersatz Molotov-Ribbentrop pact  inked in 2006 between Passion of the Weiss and Stones Throw,* I have yet to hear the fifth volume of Madlib’s Medicine Show. According to the Stones Throw promo page, it compiles various flotsam and jetsam made by Madlib in the years between his work with the Likwit Crew and […]

Stones Throw just dropped a 16-minute set of a 2005 appearance of Madlib on Power 106’s mix show, “Friday Night Flavas.”  With the other O.J. running through material from Quasimoto, Madvillain, & M.E.D., consider it an addendum to Sach’s post earlier this week, and testament to the fact that once in a blueberry kush moon, […]

  Eat your heart out Christgau! Reviewing Madlib albums in the traditional sense feels like a waste of time these days. There’s no point in trying to figure out a particular record’s inner logic: it’s probably just the result of Madlib’s particular listening patterns on any given week. In fact, Madlib’s output is single-handedly redefining […]

Madlib is releasing 18 albums this year. Maybe 19. Maybe more. No one really knows. Not me. Not Egon or Peanut Butter Wolf. Not Madlib himself. We know that there are a dozen Beat Konducta albums surveying Otis Jackson’s far-flung tastes. Reggae and Afro-Beat. Tropicalia and New Wave. Actual rap music for those down since […]

Sach O forms like Old McDonald: E I O. In Search of Stoney Jackson is Madlib’s 48 Hours. His Center of Attention. His Livin’ Proof. If those names don’t ring a bell, you’re probably not a fan of super producers giving away their best beats to seemingly undeserving rappers. That’s not a diss: I honestly […]