Hip-Hop

Prince Paul is happy. Happy to be back in New York, happy De La Soul is finally on streaming services, and happy to chat about the difference between the E-mu SP-12 and SP-1200 samplers. At 56 years young, he bursts into the room with a big smile, wearing a coordinated blue hat...

Born in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and the musical force of Staten Island's Wu-Tang Clan, RZA (Robert Fitzgerald Diggs) is easily one of the most revered and gifted producers of his generation. Working without a click, and often without a net, RZA's unorthodox sampling...

Known as Kid Koala, Eric Yick Keung San is recognized as an innovative scratch DJ and turntablist, but he's also accomplished a much deeper range of amazing work beyond the DJ moniker than one might be lead to believe. Besides being a member of the famed hip-hop trio...

A pure obsession with sound drove a young woman from her rural Italian home to the UK and into London's recording studios. A relentless drive to learn how everything in audio works then set her on the path to sessions with Depeche Mode, Björk, Animal Collective, Circuit des...

Doomtree is a hip-hop collective base in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The seven-member band and record label is known for its homegrown DIY ethos, wide range of musical influences, and lyrical complexity and wordplay. Their fanbase on a local level, as well as nationally, has grown...

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...