Logic and Madlib have formed a new duo project, MadGic, and have already represented it with a new joint single 'Mars Only pt. 3', Pitchfork reports. The song's lyrics allude the pair have made an entire MadGic album in lockdown. Logic announced his retirement from music last year to spend more time with his family.
"Madlib channels a deep, intertwining lineage of Black music through 'Sound Ancestors' like folklore oration, storytelling with the sorcery of a beatmaker who knows how to make an instrumental really sing" - Guardian writes in a 5-star review of LA producer's newest album. NPR's Piotr Orlov writes Madlib is "communing with the ghosts set to vinyl discs and re-dreamed into life, making a future out of pieces of history", while the producer himself says there's higher powers here - "spirits come into play when you do a certain type of music; sometimes I'm not even doing the music, sometimes that's just sound ancestors".
Rapper Hus Kingpin made a whole album inspired by Portishead, 'Beth Gibbons' is the stand-out track so far; Cassandra Jenkins' 'Hard Drive' is just a smooth-cool-groovey indie rock drive; Kendrick Lamar's hip-hop gets interpreted as jazz in 'How Much A Dollar Cost' by the jazz supergroup R+R=NOW which includes Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Derrick Hodge, Taylor McFerrin, and Justin Tyson; Panopticon share a 12-minute epic black/sludge/post metal 'KnowHope'; Amanda Gorman's powerful Inauguration Day poem 'The Hill We Climb' gets even richer with a piano improv by Rostam; Madlib's 'Dirtknock' is a simple song, barely-there - just some guitar and vocals; Black Sheep Wall share a 13-minute psychedelic sludge/hardcore/post metal 'New Measures Of Failure'; th1rt3en is the new rap-rock group of Pharoahe Monch, Daru Jones, and Marcus Machado - 'Cult 45' promises a lot; Austrian post-blackers Harakiri For The Sky share a furious and melodic 'I'm All About The Dusk'; Matthew E White & Lonnie Holley share jazzy and arythmical 'This Here Jungle Of Moderness/Composition 14'; the Faith No More-Jesus Lizard-Helmet-M. Bungle super-group Tomahawk gets its groove back in 'Business Casual'.
Madlib is joined by Four Tet on the uplifting track 'Hopprock'; a sad story - after Justin Townes Earle died last year, his father Steve Earle recorded an album of his son's songs, and one of his own, 'Last Words', about their last conversation they had the night the younger Americana singer-songwriter died of an accidental overdose; emo-hardcore band Holy Figures released an EP about drugs, with songs named after women, melodic and powerful 'Lucille' stands out among them; Open Mike Eagle recorded a freestyle after hearing about MF Doom's passing, titled simply 'for DOOM'.
Loyle Carner shared his new Madlib-produced jazzy 'Yesterday'; 'Feel the Thunder' is a funny song - Haim trying to sound like Guns N' Roses, 'Welcome to the Jungle' to be specific; Makaya McCraven made a dubby jazz remix of Nuby Garcia's 'Source'; Your Old Droog features El-P, Black Thought, Mach-Hommy, and Tha God Fahim on 'Pravda'.
Bandcamp presents Madlib's 'Medicine Show', producer's series focused on different genres and themes, featuring unreleased remixes and verses from some of Madlib’s most noted collaborators, showing Madlib at his most unrestrained. Some are straight rap albums, some go left of the field educating in obscure Brazilian music, psychedelic jazz, reggae dub and forgotten disco...
The woman from the Dirty Dancing song teams up with a mobster and a kid from a pizza parlor to - by a combination of timing, luck, forethought, and stolen lyrics - start a revolution - Complex says about Sylvia Robinson, their choice of the best hip-hop producer od 1979. The best in 2019 - Madlib, for creating soulful, era-spanning beats. In-between the two - Kanye West, Dr. Dre, The Neptunes...
Madlib produced all the beats on the album by The Professionals, and his younger brother Oh No rapped on all the songs. It turned out "really good", Brooklyn Vegan reviews - "Madlib’s production is as warped and psychedelic as ever, and Oh No keeps everything grounded with cold, forceful rhymes that act as a well-matched foil to Madlib’s trippier production".
Freddie Gibbs and Madlib visited NPR's offices and performed four songs at a Tiny Desk Concert. The duo played songs from their 2019 album 'Bandana' alongside New York-based funk band El Michels Affair. Watch it below.
"This is two guys who know each other well, pushing each other and pushing themselves. It works the same as a great jazz session — these two vastly different artists figuring out how to get into each other’s groove" - Stereogum writes about 'Bandana', new album by avant-garde hip-hop producer Madlib and a big-mouthy rapper […]
The Quietus explores Madlib through his music, with ten key releases in a vast and varied career, from free-jazzy to straight hip-hop stuff he did (next week he releases 'Bandana', a collaborative album with Freddie Gibbs) . The California producer says how he was "the strange kid" when he was a teenager living in a […]
Freddie Gibbs rides a horse, bathes in a mountain spring, hangs out with zebras, and clowns various farm workers in his new and funny video 'Crime Pays'. The song is produced by Madlib and is coming on album 'Bandana', out later this year.
