Listen to This: Madlib Mines the Blue Note Records Archive

BLUE NOTE RECORDS: BEYOND THE NOTES runs July 19 – 24 at the AFS Cinema. Join us for a Blue Note Records DJ set by Violet Sound following the Friday, July 19, 7 PM screening, and a post-movie discussion with jazz trumpeter Jeff Lofton on Saturday, July 20 after the 4:30 screening. Purchase tickets. 

Known under many different aliases—most notably Quasimoto and one half of the duo Madvillian—DJ, producer and MC Madlib is an artist that isn’t afraid to march to his own beat. Working with names as big as Kanye West, J Dilla and Erykah Badu, Madlib’s influence runs deep throughout today’s hip-hop scene. 

Wanting to reach a wider audience and reframe its revolutionary music, in 2003 Blue Note Records tasked the unpredictable and eclectic Madlib with creating a “remix” project out of their vast master tapes archive. Home to groundbreaking artists such as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, Madlib had free range to sample some of the most influential music ever produced. Innovative and refreshing, Madlib’s creation is an album that highlights a wide range of the label’s rebellious impulses—an excellent way to “sample” one of the heaviest catalogues of the 20th century. Listen here.