Hip-Hop

Since 2009, the partnership between Ishmael Butler and his post-Digable Planets outfit, Shabazz Palaces, and producer/engineer/artist Erik Blood, has yielded some of the most interesting and futuristic hip-hop music in recent memory. I sat down with Erik and Ishmael at their...

Justin Smith, better known as Just Blaze, catapulted to the upper echelon of hip hop in the early '00s as the producer behind a string of hits with Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella Records. He has been in high demand ever since, working with Eminem, Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Usher...

Rock is dead. At least the big business of rock 'n' roll, that is. But big budgets, unlimited studio time and total indulgence still exist in the hip-hop and pop worlds. And where there's money, talent is sure to follow.

Andrew Dawson, the 29-year-old...

Bob Power is one of those names you might know not from reading liner notes, but instead from listening to vocal ad-libs on records he's produced or engineered. In the mid-eighties, Power found himself engineering at Calliope Studios in NYC, home to many groups that were...

Sometimes it's too bad Tape Op doesn't offer an audio version of the magazine. Whatever you might know or not know about Hank Shocklee, it's difficult without hearing him speak, to convey the abundance of energy, good humor and all-out love for music that wells up...

Anticon is a collectively owned record label based in Oakland, California. It produces well- known avant hip-hop records, financially supports its divergent artists and is

The Coup is a hip-hop group from Oakland. They have an outwardly Marxist bent, which has earned them diehard fans as well as vituperous criticism from mainstream pundits. But that won't be our focus here. Their politics have been covered at length, with too little attention...

Ready for the House and Later On CD reissues

The mysterious figure known only as Jandek started lo-fi home recording in 1978, long before anyone thought of using those words. The Beginning marks his 28th release, all on the Houston label Corwood Industries, which only releases...

The Sick Bees are a guitar/vocal and drums duo (with a dash of clarinet and keyboards to keep it spicy) that sounds like the polar opposite of the Spinanes. In fact, their approach is more in tune with early 80's artpunk like The Birthday Party or Richard Edson era Sonic...