Anatomy of a Verse

Part 2 of the MF DOOM story. We discuss his alter-egos, his commitment to music over image, his relationship with Madlib, his dizzying rhyme schemes, and his ridiculous ability to dissect how old words, memes, and cultures can morph and shift into somethings new.

The Independent Hip-Hop movement exploded in the early 2000's. While MF DOOM was on the forefront in New York, a triple threat who called himself Madlib was turning heads in Los Angeles.

The greatest Hip-Hop comeback story of all time. The music industry rejected him, so he rallied an entire community and became a legend.

MF DOOM's beats deserve their own category. With unconventional breakbeats, sloppy drum programming, and sample choices that could be adventurously unadventurous, DOOM made everyone rethink the rules of Hip-Hop production.

Earth, Wind & Fire's keyboardist – Larry Dunn – created one of the coolest and most underappreciated instrumental interludes of all time by playing along to a different song... backwards. This is just one of many ways in which EWF helped usher in the Hip-Hop revolution without actually making hip-hop music.

Kendrick Lamar's 'Control' verse is a brilliantly written love letter to the era of competitive Hip-Hop. In this episode, we examine all the clever references and homages, as well as the misleading media feeding frenzy that followed its release.

Andre 3000 lays it all on the table here: his life, his career, and his relationship with women, drugs, food, fashion, and the music industry. And underneath it all, a message about mental health and defining success from Hip-Hop's greatest mystic.

Dr. Dre's 1992 album The Chronic ushered in a new era of mainstream Rap Music based in Los Angeles, but not without some challenges from Hip-Hop's original birthplace of New York City. His secret weapon was a Long Beach rapper named Snoop Doggy Dogg, who reminds us that Hip-Hop's DNA began way before 1973.

Happy Halloween to all the listeners, and a Happy 10-year Anniversary to the subject of today's episode! In 2010, Nicki Minaj did the impossible, successfully navigating industry hurdles that had shut women out of lead roles in Hip-Hop for almost a decade. But it wouldn't happen without sacrifices.

The first rapper to have a number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 was not Vanilla Ice, or MC Hammer, but Debbie Harry from the band Blondie. On this episode, we examine how the song Rapture helped fuse two parallel music scenes in New York City, and how Fab Five Freddy played a key role in that merger.

At first, the song appears to be a simple story about a shallow woman who doesn't take her man seriously. But as we dive deeper, we'll discover that it's actually a deep analysis and questioning of Hip-Hop's relationship with the communities that it represents.

Kanye West may not be Hip-Hop's greatest rapper or producer. But he is almost certainly its greatest collaborator of all time. This episode zooms in on one of those collaborations, showing how film composer and producer, Jon Brion, helped transform Kanye's verse into one of the decade's most powerful and transcendent musical experiences.

At some point in the late 90s, a huge shift happened. All of the sudden, the South was influencing Hip-Hop more than the East or West Coasts, despite being short-changed by record labels. In this episode, we examine how Texas legend Chad Lamont Butler, aka Pimp C, played a central role in this shift.

Nas' 1994 album _Illmatic_ is now considered one of the most important artistic depictions of early 90s New York City. This episode explores how the Queensbridge Housing Projects became New York City's second epicenter of Hip-Hop, and how a young Nasir Jones channeled his own childhood trauma to create a legendary verse.

From the "yeah! woo!" sample to the iconic opening line, 'It Takes Two' is one of 1989's most enduring pieces of pop music. In a year when Hip-Hop was experiencing an evolutionary explosion, this song established a firm connection to the genre's early days in the 1970s, propelled by MC Rob Base's impeccable phrasing and DJ EZ Rock's legendary beat.