Madlib

Producer, DJ, and rapper Madlib brings a cerebral, sometimes ethereal approach to his music, which confidently spans the worlds of hip-hop and jazz. Born Otis Jackson, Jr., in Oxnard, California, on October 24, 1973, he grew up in a musical family and made his professional entrée into music in 1993 by producing the debut album for L.A. rap trio the Alkaholiks. His own crew, Lootpack, also released music in the mid-90s, which earned the notice of DJ and label owner Peanut Butter Wolf, who brought Lootpack to his label, Stones Throw Records.

Lootpack delivered its sole proper LP, Soundpieces: Da Antidote, for Stones Throw in 1999. The next year, Madlib took the first steps of his solo career with The Unseen, released under the name Quasimoto, although the lineup was only Madlib, along with his alter ego, Lord Quas. The album displayed Madlib’s dexterity with multiple hip-hop idioms, but he would step aside from the rap world and flex his production skills on his acclaimed 2003 album, Shades of Blue. A collaboration with legendary jazz label Blue Note Records, Madlib was given free rein with the Blue Note library to remix, tweak, and generally turn inside-out decades of jazz, and the record appeared on multiple jazz charts.

Madlib also continued to release music on Stones Throw, sometimes under the aliases Quasimoto or DJ Rels, and teamed up with another famous aliased musician, MF Doom, in the duo Madvillain. Additional collaborations with J Dilla, Freddie Gibbs, and Talib Kweli kept Madlib busy into 2020, and he often released the instrumental versions of these albums under his own name. He provided the score for Michael Rapaport’s 2014 documentary, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, and produced music for Erykah Badu and De La Soul. He also worked with Pittsburgh rapper Mac Miller on an unreleased EP before Miller’s 2018 death.