Otis Jackson Jr. (born October 24, 1973) in Oxnard, California, known professionally as Madlib, is a Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, andmusic producer. Known under a plethora of pseudonyms, he is one of the most prolific and critically acclaimed hip hop producers of the 2000s and has collaborated with myriad hip hop artists, including The Alkaholiks, Mos Def, De La Soul, Ghostface Killah, Talib Kweli, A.G., MF DOOM (as Madvillain), and the late J Dilla (as Jaylib). Madlib has described himself as a "DJ first, producer second, and MC last,and he has done several projects as a DJ, mixer, or remixer. Madlib has been an influence on an upcoming generation of producers and musicians, many of whom prefer Madlib's abstract styles.
Madlib's first release under the guise of Quasimoto, titled The Unseen, was in 2000. The album was met with critical acclaim and named by Spin Magazine as one of the top albums of the year. Madlib (as Quasimoto) was also named as Hip Hop Connection's Newcomer of the Year in its annual readers poll for 2000. The distinctive high-pitched voice of Lord Quas is attained by playing the original beat at a slow speed, recording the vocals over that slow speed, then speeding the vocals along with the original beat back up to its original tempo. Furthermore, some of the samples that are sped up and slowed down include Madlib's own voice (primarily) and Melvin Van Peebles recordings.
Madlib was born in Oxnard, California to musician parents Otis Jackson, Sr. and Dora Sinesca Jackson. He was raised in Oxnard, and currently works in Los Angeles. He began making music with the rap group Lootpack in the early 1990s. After his father started an independent label Crate Diggas Palace (CDP) Records in 1996 to promote Madlib and his CDP crew, including younger sibling Oh No and released an EP "Ill Psyche Move," Lootpack caught the attention ofPeanut Butter Wolf, founder of the Stones Throw Records label. They released two singles and a full-length album on the Stones Throw imprint in 1999. Madlib also worked with rap group Tha Alkaholiks for several albums.
Early life and career
In 2001, Madlib took a turn away from traditional hip hop music, releasing his first Yesterdays New Quintet LP, Angles Without Edges. Yesterdays New Quintet is a Jazz-based, hip hop and electronic-influenced quintet made up of four alter egos or fictional musicians played by Madlib: Ahmad Miller, Monk Hughes, Malik Flavors and Joe McDuphrey; as well as Madlib under his real name, Otis Jackson Jr. Madlib has continued to record other albums under the different guises of Yesterdays New Quintet members, including 2002's tribute to Stevie Wonder, Stevie; as well as "solo" albums by the various members, such as Monk Hughes' 2004's tribute to Weldon Irvine, A Tribute to Brother Weldon, Joe McDuphrey Experience. He also created the pseudonym Sound Directions to create the YNQ-like band's "debut" album The Funky Side of Life.
The first album under the name Madlib, released in 2002, was a collection of old dub reggae tracks from Trojan Records, and was titled Blunted in the Bomb Shelter. The second, Shades of Blue was released in 2003 and is a remix of Blue Note Records.[3] This album features original Blue Note recordings, some remixed and resampled, and some replayed by Madlib, as well as rapping by M.E.D. aka Medaphoar.
Popular collaborations
His first collection of original (previously unused) hip-hop instrumentals Beat Konducta Vol 1-2: Movie Scenes was released in March 2006, and on New Year's Eve, a digital release Liberation with Talib Kweli was made public for free download for the first week of 2007. In August 2007, Beat Konducta Vol 3-4: Beat Konducta in India was released, an instrumental hip hop album containing songs sampling the music of India.The 2005 Quasimoto album, The Further Adventures of Lord Quas was accepted well and continued the Quasimoto tradition of using vocal samples from Melvin Van Peebles. This was followed by a YNQ album called Sound Directions: The Funky Side of Life, marking his first collaboration with session musicians.
Yesterdays Universe completed the cycle of releases by Yesterdays New Quintet and introduces a new collection of artist names created by Madlib: The Jazzistics, The Young Jazz Rebels, Suntouch, The Jahari Massamba Unit, Kamala Walker & The Soul Tribe, The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble, The Yesterdays Universe All-Stars, The Otis Jackson Jr. Trio, and The Eddie Prince Fusion Band. This album also would mark the first collaboration between Madlib and Brazilian jazz artist Ivan "Mamao" Conti under the band name Jackson Conti.
Percee P's first album, Perseverance, entirely produced by Madlib, was out in September 2007. Some other records are supposed to come out such as the Supreme Team album (with Karriem Riggins), as well as a solo album on BBE Records. It has been reported that Erykah Badu made some new songs over Madlib's instrumentals, and that he would work on a project with Sa-Ra. For years, rumours of Madvillainy 2 andJaylib 2 have circulated, but no information has surfaced, besides one new Madvillain song on the Stones Throw Records compilation Chrome Children in 2006.
On October 29, 2007, Madlib made a rare public appearance on BET's Rap City, alongside collaborator Talib Kweli.[6]
Madlib produced Erykah Badu's second single from her New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) album, "The Healer". The song formally debuted on Gilles Peterson's BBC Radio show in January 2008.
In May 2008, Conti and Madlib released a full album of Jackson Conti material, entitled Sujinho.
In September 2008, Stones Throw released a limited box set called Madvillainy 2: The Box, containing the long awaited Madvillainy 2: The Madlib Remix. It has remixes of the first Madvillainy album and the songMonkey Suite, originally on the Chrome Children compilation, a One Beer (Drunk Version) 7"-single, the Madvillain demo cassette, a T-shirt and a comic book.
Madlib's BBE "Beat Generation" Album WLIB AM: King of the Wigflip was released in September 2008.[7]
Madlib's third two-volume Beat Konducta album was released in early 2009. Beat Konducta Vol. 5-6: A Tribute to... is a 42-track piece dedicated to the late J Dilla.
In 2009, he produced "In Search of Stoney Jackson", a whole album for the Los Angeles band Strong Arm Steady, which was out physically in the beginning of the following year. At the end of that year, it was said that he would start an imprit called "Madlib Medicine Show", half based on unreleased original material, half based on mixes. This project consists of one record being dropped every month for the whole year 2010, making it 12 differents records, including 6 original albums and 6 mixes.
In 2010, a collaboration with Detroit rapper Guilty Simpson, called OJ Simpson, as well as a disc of original tracks and remixes being the first volume of the Madlib Medicine Show series, was out.
The beginning of this year also saw 2 other releases of his jazz imprint Yesterdays Universe, as 2 new projects, one being the band Last Electro Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble (which already dropped the Summer Suite and the Fall Suite before) with the record "Miles Away", and Young Jazz Rebels with the record "Slave Riot".
He also collaborated on two tracks on Erykah Badu's "New Amerykah part 2 : Return of the Ankh".
It is believed that he is currently working on the 3rd Quasimoto album, the 2nd Madvillain album with MF Doom, a project with Karriem Riggins in a Jaylib type of collaboration called Supreme Team, as well as other jazz records from the Yesterdays Universe imprit, following by his collaboration with his younger brother and fellow producer/mc Oh No forming the super duo "The Professionals"
Associateprofessionally as Madlib, is a Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, andmusic producer. Known under a plethora of pseudonyms, he is one of the most prolific and critically acclaimed hip hop producers of the 2000s and has collaborated with myriad hip hop artists, including The Alkaholiks, Mos Def, De La Soul, Ghostface Killah, Talib Kweli, A.G., MF DOOM (as Madvillain), and the late J Dilla (as Jaylib). Madlib has described himself as a "DJ first, producer second, and MC last, and he has done several projects as a DJ, mixer, or remixer. Madlib has been an influence on an upcoming generation of producers and musicians, many of whom prefer Madlib's abstract style
This was around the time when Yesterdays New Quintet came out. For yallz that don’t know, the man is a genius. He is every fictitious player in that quintet. He is also both the high voice and low voice rappers in his band, Quasimoto and he is everything in all his other projects too. Dude is more prolific than Prince. 1. How does the music of others affect your own? sometimes i hear great music, sometimes i hear wack music. the great music influences me in subconscious ways – i might pick up a piano style from steve kuhn and not even know it. the wack music pushes me away and leads me to create music that doesn’t sound anything like it. 2. What current producers do you consider the most influential? The most innovative? i dig jay dee, he’s real dope. his sound is everywhere now, he’s both influential and innovative. of course, i check for dj premier. he’s one of the all time greats. 3. Do you feel people read too much into your music? sometimes, especially with the quasimoto album. i read so many crazy reviews of that record – but for real, i was just trying out some weird ass idea. 4. What artforms go best with “beats” (music videos, live dance performance, etc.) hmm, that’s a tough one. i tend to think “smoking trees,” an artform that people rarely see as such. 5. I realize that the names of the individuals that are attributed to each instrument on the album are fictitious, and it’s really all just you….so here goes. a. Do you record any of the instruments live and if so, do you cut pieces of a live performance and loop it to sound like a sample? all of the instruments, besides the drums, were played live by me. b. What do you do to the instruments to get your own sound (i.e. what effects proccessors do you use and how important are they in your recording proccess)? well, the drums are sampled (i assume you’re talking about ynq here), i chop them into small pieces and tap them out live. but as to the rest of the instruments, i just try to eq them as well as possible in my digital board. 6. What programs do you use for mix down? i do everything straight into my roland 1680. 7. Do you put more energy in any one of your alter egos, more so then any others? Secondly, do you have a favorite alias? hard to say – the quintet takes a lot of my energy and quas has been getting jealous. i gotta watch my back. my favorite alias is probably lord such – that’s one ill ass nigga. 8. Trane or Miles and why? miles ’cause he was around long enough to try his hand in almost all the jazz eras – and he was ill in all of them. 9. How did you get started making the kind of music that you do? really, i think the music started me. 10. Do you know who you are…or just who you can be? when i wake up in the morning, and i start recording, it’s like a moment of clarity. my day begins and ends with music. everything that i am, or can be, is tied up in the process. Madlibs Body Of Work Madlib is definitely one of the most interesting figures in Hip Hop! His creativity is amazing, whether as producer/beatsmith/remixer/emcee/dj. He linked up with so many projects of many different genres. There is the jazz colaboration with Blue Note, the result is the absolutly ingenious 'Shades Of Blue'. The 'Blunted In The Bomb Shelter' project, where he selected old tracks from the Trojan Records catalouge. The collaborations with MF Doom and J Dilla also awesome results of Madlib's creativity! His creative spectrum goes from Electronic over Jazz, Funk/Soul and Reggae to Hip Hop. He's open minded for any kind of good music........DJ Ghost Dogg |
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