Here at BeatGrade we decided to do our own Top Ten series of great producers. This feature is Madlib.
He is most likely your favorite producer's, favorite producer and he has produced some of the Best beats of all time.
This selection of beats we chose are our take on his most influential beats we feel Madlib has produced. The list was hard to choose, probably one of the toughest list to do next to J Dilla Top's 10. We know you could feature his entire discography and couldn't go wrong he has dropped so many classics.
Madlib has put out some of the most influential records of all time as well, shaping a culture in Hip Hop such as Lootpack's 1999 debut album Soundpieces: Da Antidote ushered in a string of releases on Stones Throw centering on Madlib's production work which would continue for a decade. His first solo work, The Unseen, under the guise of Quasimoto, came in 2000. The album was met with critical acclaim and named by Spin as one of the top 20 albums of the year.
In 2001, Madlib moved away from hip hop music and began a series of releases from Yesterdays New Quintet, a jazz-based, hip hop and electronic-influenced quintet made up of alter-egos or fictional musicians played by Madlib. Over the next several years, through several record releases on one of the biggest independent record labels Stones Throw Records and other labels, the growing number of pseudonyms and fictional players came to be known as Yesterdays Universe. Madlib was later invited to remix tracks from the Blue Note Records archive in 2003, which he released as Shades of Blue. In addition to the remixes, the album contained newly recorded interpretations of Blue Note originals, many of which were credited to members of Yesterdays New Quintet. Beginning with the 2007 album The Funky Side of Life by Yesterdays New Quintet spin-off group Sound Directions, the Yesterdays Universe also began incorporating additional session musicians who were not pseudonyms of Madlib.
Returning to hip hop music in 2003, Madlib announced two collaborative projects. He joined hip hop producer J Dilla in a duo known as Jaylib, which released Champion Sound. Madlib then collaborated with rapper MF DOOM, known together as Madvillain. Their 2004 album Madvillainy was highly anticipated and well-received, topping many critics' year-end lists. He also went on to collab with J Dilla after the two had worked with mutual artists and had a great amount of respect for each other. The album Jaylib was released on Stones Throw Records to critical acclaim and one of the first albums to announce Dilla as not only a producer but a rapper as well.
The 2005 Quasimoto album The Further Adventures of Lord Quas met with warm reception[9] and continued the Quasimoto tradition of using vocal samples from Melvin Van Peebles, who is credited on the album liner notes as a collaborator. Throughout the rest of the decade Madlib continued to release jazz material simultaneously with his hip hop work: Perseverance with Percee P, Liberation with Talib Kweli, Sujinho with Ivan Conti of Azymuth, his own instrumental hip hop series Beat Konducta, In Search of Stoney Jackson with Strong Arm Steady, Guilty Simpson, and production work for artists such as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Kanye West, Erykah Badu, De La Soul, Freddie Gibbs and even now worked with mainstream artist such as Kendrick Lamar. This is Madlib Invazion.
***If there's a producer who's beats you feel we should list, please say their names in the comments below!
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