Madlib
A Los Angeles producer from Oxnard, California, who built a catalog of instrumental hip-hop, jazz projects and collaborations, and was given the keys to the Blue Note archive in 2003.
- Origin
- Oxnard, California
- Years active
- 1993-present
- Genres
- instrumental hip-hop, jazz rap, underground hip-hop, experimental hip-hop
- Labels
- Stones Throw, Madlib Invazion, Blue Note
- Also known as
- Otis Jackson Jr., Quasimoto, Yesterdays New Quintet, DJ Rels, Beat Konducta, The Loop Digga, Mad Liberator
Oxnard and the aliases
Madlib was born Otis Lee Jackson Jr. on October 24, 1973 in Oxnard, California. His father, Otis Jackson Sr., was a soul singer in the 1970s, his mother was Dora Sinesca Jackson, and his younger brother is the producer and rapper Michael Jackson, known as Oh No. The Baltimore Sun reported in 2003 that his uncle is the jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis. His first commercial work, in 1993, was production for Tha Alkaholiks, and in 1995 his father released the Lootpack EP Psyche Move on Crate Diggas Palace. Stones Throw signed Lootpack in 1998, and in 2000 came The Unseen, by his rapping alter ego Quasimoto.
He works under many names: Quasimoto, Yesterdays New Quintet (YNQ), DJ Rels, Beat Konducta, The Loop Digga and Mad Liberator. His groups and collaborations include Lootpack, the Likwit Crew, Madvillain with MF DOOM, Jaylib with J Dilla and MadGibbs with Freddie Gibbs. He began the Yesterdays New Quintet releases in 2001 with Angles Without Edges.
Records
Shades of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note came out on Blue Note on June 24, 2003, the same year as Jaylib's Champion Sound. Madvillainy followed in 2004, The Further Adventures of Lord Quas in 2005 and Yesterdays Universe in 2007. He announced the Madlib Invazion label and the Medicine Show series in 2010, released Pinata with Freddie Gibbs in 2014 and Bandana in 2019, and put out Sound Ancestors in 2021. More recent releases include Liberation 2 (2023), YHWH Is Love with the Jahari Massamba Unit (2024) and the MadRaps EP with Rapsody (2025). Uncut called him a master of the lost art of sampledelia, and Spin named The Unseen a top-20 album of 2000.
Live
Setlist.fm logs about 80 Madlib setlists, mostly from 2019 to 2024, from the Marble Factory in Bristol in August 2019 to Cross The Tracks in Brockwell Park in London in May 2024. They include the Blue Note Jazz Festival in 2022 and 2023, Coachella 2022, Rising in Melbourne and Vivid Live in Sydney in 2023, and Day N Vegas in 2021. A fan-made Spotify playlist of more than a thousand songs he has sampled, started in April 2016, was covered by XXL in June 2017.
Records
- Shades of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note 2003 · Blue Note
A remix and reimagining of the Blue Note catalog, made in about a week after half a year of thinking.
Songs
- Mystic Bounce Shades of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note · 2003
A remake of Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Brew" with a faster tempo, hand claps and party noise.
- Slim's Return Shades of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note · 2003
A reworking of a Gene Harris track from the album Elegant Soul, with Ahmad Miller and DJ Lord Such.
Related artists
Where to go next
Reference
- Madlib on Wikipedia A biography and discography overview.
- Shades of Blue on Wikipedia Tracklist, charts and reception.
Writing and criticism
- Albumism: the 20th anniversary reissue The 2023 reissue.
Live performance archives
- setlist.fm: Madlib About 80 setlists.
Fan sites and communities
- XXL: a playlist of Madlib's samples A sample-digging overview.
Labels
- Stones Throw: Madlib Release listings.
Sources
- Madlib, Wikipedia
- Shades of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note, Wikipedia
- Madlib's Shades of Blue, Stones Throw (2003-07-08)
- Madlib can take an old groove and make it new again, The Baltimore Sun (2003-08-21)
- Stepping Into Tomorrow: Madlib's homage to Blue Note, UDiscover Music
- Madlib samples playlist, XXL (2017-06-24)