The Album: William Onyeabor: Who Is William Onyeabor? (2013) Benjamin Booker rocks. His soulful blend of blues, rock soul and punk, together with hella honest lyrics and an inimitable voice has moved folks across his self titled debut and latest album Witness. He joined us to talk about his discovery of Luaka Bop’s World Psychedelic Classics 5: Who Is William Onyeabor? It was love at first listen. He loved the moog and the drums, the minimalism and the disco elements. He loved the message. We ta...
Jun 28, 2018•36 min•Ep. 40
Show: Heat Rocks Guest: Eliza Skinner The Album: Pretty in Pink Soundtrack (1986) Actress and comedian Eliza Skinner is part of the brand new Maximum Fun scripted comedy show, Bubble, and hosts her own music podcast, Cool Playlist . For her guest spot on Heat Rocks, she wanted to revisit one of the iconic soundtracks of the 1980s: Pretty in Pink. The film is a key part of the John Hughes pantheon, alongside The Breakfast Club, 16 Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off and arguably boasts the most ...
Jun 21, 2018•43 min•Ep. 39
Show: Heat Rocks Guest: Marcus Moore The Album: Mos Def's Black on Both Sides (1999) Writer Marcus Moore, currently a senior editor at Bandcamp, happened to be coming through to Los Angeles for his first time ever and we took advantage by inviting him to join us to talk about Mos Def's debut album, Black on Both Sides. Coming out just a year after Mos and Talib Kweli created a new generation of conscious hip-hop fans with their Black Star collaboration, Black on Both Sides was also the culminati...
Jun 14, 2018•46 min•Ep. 38
Show: Heat Rocks Guests: Adrian Younge The Album: Jeru the Damaja's The Sun Rises In the East (1994) Since he started putting numbers on the board with the soundtrack to Black Dynamite , artist/composer Adrian Younge has become the hip-hop maestro for creative collaborations. Through the years, he's worked with Souls of Mischief , Ghostface Killah and DJ Premier/Royce the 5'9" as well as continuing to release his own solo work . For our episode, Younge reached back to the golden era of hip-hop f...
Jun 07, 2018•42 min•Ep. 37
Guest: Taura Stinson The Album: Minnie Riperton's Adventures in Paradise (1975) 2018 has been a breakout year for this weeks guest, Taura Stinson. " Mighty River ", the song she co-wrote with Raphael Saadiq for Dee Rees' critically acclaimed film Mudbound was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award. She is a singer's singer who understands the nuances of song creation, production and arrangement. We couldn't have asked for a better guest and a better album to discuss and were thri...
May 31, 2018•45 min•Ep. 36
Show: Heat Rocks Guests: Cut Chemist "Say go DJ, cause that's my DJ..." - Weezy Cut Chemist is nice with the wax, nice with the loops, nice on the decks. A central figure in West Coast hip hop (Jurassic 5, Ozomotli) and the art of turntablism, both he and his record collection are legendary. While he joined us to talk about British funk pioneer Cymande's 1972 self-titled debut, our conversation covered a myriad of topics including Cut's journey as a crate digger, a record he may or may not have ...
May 24, 2018•42 min•Ep. 35
Comprehensive analysis. Two words that describe Cole Cuchna's extraordinary podcast, DISSECT, which dedicates a season to unpacking one album, one song (per episode) at a time. His subterranean exploration of Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the reasons we were thrilled to have him join us to discuss Kanye West's 6th album, Yeezus . We covered Yeezy the persona vs. Kanye the person, problematic lyrics, ego reckoning, and the 2009 VMA's - a turning point in his career and ...
May 17, 2018•43 min•Ep. 34
Ethnomusicologist Fredara Hadley had been on our wish list for a while and as luck would have it, she came to Los Angeles earlier this spring and things lined up nicely. For our episode, Fredara wanted to get into the queen of the quiet storm from the 1980s and early ‘90s: Anita Baker and her platinum-selling 1990 album, Compositions . During our conversation, we got into the nuances of Baker’s voice and how she compelled your full attention, how she fit (or didn’t) with the sound of R&B in ...
May 10, 2018•42 min•Ep. 33
Justin Simien, whose Dear White People is just beginning its second season on Netflix, came through to join us live for another Voyager Institute collaboration. By sheer coincidence, our last VI event took on Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation and here we are again, working our way through another Jackson family LP. (Can LaToya be too far behind?) HIStory , as our crew points out, is an odd duck in the vaunted Jackson discography. Though it was enormously successful – the best selling double album of...
May 03, 2018•48 min•Ep. 32
Martín Perna of Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra wanted to revisit one of the formative albums of his childhood: Michael Jackson's Off The Wall . For many MJ fans, this is the king of pop's greatest work, a clear statement that he was now fully out of the shadow of the Jackson 5 and, along with super-producer Quincy Jones, ready to remake American pop music as we know it. Perna not only brought his memories of growing up, mesmerized by the cover of the album, but his multi-instrumentalist also broke...
Apr 26, 2018•44 min•Ep. 31
Guests: Egyptian Lover The album: Cameo: Cameosis (1980) Egyptian Lover is one of the pivotal figures in shaping the sound of Los Angeles funk and hip-hop beginning in the 1980s. As a teen, he became a core member of the all-powerful Uncle Jamm's Army party crew and by the mid-80s, he was an artist in his own right, releasing a series of key electro albums that would help pave the way for the emergence of other L.A. groups like the Dream Team and N.W.A. For our episode, Egyptian Lover wanted to ...
Apr 20, 2018•38 min•Ep. 30
Guest: Nite Jewel The album: Kraftwerk: Computer World (1981) When we invited L.A.'s own Nite Jewel to join us, it probably shouldn't have been a surprise that she picked Kraftwerk's Computer World ; after all, she's toured the world performing the album . In sitting down with us, NJ (aka Ramona Gonzalez) broke down how she first became obsessed with the album, walking the streets of Berkeley, thinking about German philosophy (no, really!) and why the LP is such a masterpiece of fusing a variety...
Apr 12, 2018•47 min•Ep. 29
Guest: Brother Ali The album: Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life (1976) As part of the two week MaxFun Drive, we wanted to save two of our best shows to share with you. This first week, it's rapper Brother Ali, a long time MaxFun favorite, and he picked one of the greatest albums of all time: Stevie Wonder's majestic Songs in the Key of Life , recorded when the artist was still in his 20s(!). Brother Ali, of course, has his own string of modern classics, including Shadows on the Sun (2003),...
Apr 05, 2018•49 min•Ep. 28
Guest: P.J. Morton The album: Brandy's Full Moon (2002) Grammy winning singer/songwriter and producer PJ Morton knows production. A keyboardist and vocalist for Maroon 5, PJ Morton also knows lyrics . And vocals. PJ Morton joined us to share what he knows about Brandy's 2002 Full Moon and why it is for him, a certifiable heat rock. We talked about the brilliance of producer Rodney Jerkins and what he created on this project, Brandy's prodigious talent as a child actress and singer, the evolution...
Mar 29, 2018•42 min•Ep. 27
Miss Jack Davey's contribution to LA's alternative soul scene began over a decade ago with her work as one half of the group J*Davey . Their debut project, " The Beauty In Distortion " a mix of punk, funk, synth and soul, was a must have for tastemakers and made a splash both in Los Angeles and around the world. When she's not writing songs and producing, she can be found at a myriad of cool spots around the city, spreading the good news of good music as a DJ and selector. Davey wanted to get in...
Mar 22, 2018•39 min•Ep. 26
Producer/MC Denaun Porter aka Mr. Porter is one of the founding members of the Detroit crew, D12. It was none other than ATCQ's "Bonita Applebaum" that inspired him to get into hip-hop and not surprisingly, when we invited him to the show, he wanted to talk about one of the all-time great hip-hop albums: ATCQ's sophomore effort, Low End Theory. During our convo, we discussed the production techniques and sample choices, how good the album's sequencing was, and why Q-Tip and the late Phife Dawg w...
Mar 15, 2018•42 min•Ep. 25
Brian Cross, better known to most as B+, is one of the most important photographers of the hip-hop generation to ever emerge out of the West Coast. A transplant from Ireland to California, Cross began documenting the L.A. rap community throughout the late '80s and early '90s, producing one of the great books about the region's hip-hop scene, It's Not About a Salary . He's also a founding partner of the music/events organization Mochilla . Just this year, Cross finally published his first book re...
Mar 08, 2018•38 min•Ep. 24
DJ Monalisa Murray is an O.G. on the L.A. scene, having made the transition from working in marketing and promotion for record labels to working for herself as one of the Southland's premier selectors, down with everyone from Umoja Hi-Fi Soundsystem, to Footlong Development, to the KPL All-Stars. For her album choice, she wanted to spin us back to the emergence of D'Angelo and his debut album, Brown Sugar . We talked about how D'Angelo struck a different note than R&B in that era, how his st...
Mar 01, 2018•41 min•Ep. 23
Ishmael Butler aka Butterfly of Digable Planets aka one-half of Shabazz Palaces joined us to take us on a trip back to the blaxploitation era and one of the greatest soundtracks-in-search-of-a-movie: Hustlers Convention , the spoken word/funk album by Jalal Nuriddin of The Last Poets. Backed up musicians that included Kool and the Gang, Eric Gale and others, Hustlers Convention took listeners on a trip into the world of pimps, players, police and other street characters in a vivid, cinematic sto...
Feb 23, 2018•40 min•Ep. 22
MC extraordinaire Pharoahe Monch was no stranger to the trio known as Main Source (Large Professor + DJs K-Cut and Sir Scratch) back in the early '90s: Monch and Large Professor came up under the tutelage of the same mentor: producer Paul C. Though C was tragically murdered in 1989, both his proteges would go onto have banner years in '91 as Large Professor saw Main Source's Breaking Atoms released to critical fanfare while Monch enjoyed the same just a couple of months later when he and Prince ...
Feb 13, 2018•43 min•Ep. 21
The Grammy-nominated ladies of King are Anita Bias alongside sisters Amber and Paris Strother and it seems only right to have a super-sized guest talk about a super-sized album: Outkast's massive double LP from 2003: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Amongst other topics, we talked about how each of the three women first crossed paths with Outkast, what the group meant for the rise of the South in the 1990s, and revisited the endless debate over whether this as an Outkast album or a pair of Big Boi/A...
Feb 07, 2018•43 min•Ep. 20
When we approached Bardo Martinez of Chicano Batman, we figured he'd go with a left-field album choice and he did not disappoint. Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse was a cult LPs for years, one of the most overtly political albums of the entire '70s (least of all on Atlantic Records!) and might have been wholly forgotten if not for '90s hip-hop producers rediscovering it and using it as sample fodder. However, all groovy groove aside, Headless Heroes is also an astonishing album in regards to Mc...
Jan 30, 2018•38 min•Ep. 19
Frannie Kelley, alongside Ali Shaheed Muhammed, hosts the Microphone Check podcast and when we invited her onto our show, she wanted to talk about one of her formative musical experiences as a teenager: TLC's sophomore album, C razySexyCool. The three of us talked about how TLC shaped adolescent ideas about sexuality and femininity, how the group repped the hip-hop South at a time when that was just becoming to be recognized nationally, and how the group had one of the more underrated liner note...
Jan 23, 2018•41 min•Ep. 18
Vernon Reid is one of rock's greatest guitarists, having rising to stardom in the 1980s as a member of Living Colour. It's not surprising, therefore, that he'd choose an album by one of rock's other great guitarists: Jimi Hendrix and his final album, Band of Gypsys , recorded live at the Fillmore East and released in the spring of 1970. Reid gave us an amazing lesson into what exactly made Hendrix so brilliant, least of all on this album. More on Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys AVClub's Corbin Rei...
Jan 16, 2018•39 min•Ep. 17
We invited Philly hip-hop star Bahamadia to join us and she kept things tri-state by picking the 1974 debut album by New Jersey's The Kay-Gee's, originally an off-shoot of Kool and the Gang. The Kay-Gee's may not be household names in the same manner as Kool and the Gang or the Ohio Players but especially on this debut, they cooked up an impressively diverse and surprisingly eclectic set of tracks that defy simple expectation. What other band ends their album with their own " greatest hits monta...
Jan 09, 2018•35 min•Ep. 16
To talk about Kendrick Lamar's studio LP debut, we wanted to find someone of K-Dot's generation, another L.A. young gun, and who better than pianist and composer, Kris Bowers? Like Kendrick, Kris grew up in L.A. and just as Kendrick has ascended the hip-hop ladder, so has Kris in jazz, as he won the prestigious Theolonious . But more than that, the web of Los Angeles musical ties was bound to bring the two into orbit in different ways - something we discuss in the episode - not the least of whic...
Jan 02, 2018•35 min•Ep. 15
Bosco was an artist that Morgan knew, from jump, she wanted to get on the show. A Savannah native who's now an L.A. transplant (by way of Atlanta), Bosco's been steady climbing the ranks in the music game and has had a breakout year in 2017, especially wiht the release of her full-length, b. For her pick, Bosco wanted to revisit one of the formative albums that shaped her imagination as a kid: Erykah Badu's sophomore album: Mama's Gun. If Baduizm helped put Badu on the map, Mama's Gun - which wa...
Dec 26, 2017•42 min•Ep. 14
Jay Smooth was always on our list of "people who we gotta get for Heat Rocks." His cultural and political commentary, much of which he does through his pioneering Ill Doctrine videos , have positioned him as one of the hip-hop generation's leading pundits and he's also hosted one of the longest running rap shows in the world: The Underground Railroad on WBAI. For this show, Jay wanted to revisit Raising Hell a paradigm-shifting rap album that, as we discuss, has seemingly become underrated throu...
Dec 19, 2017•41 min•Ep. 13
This is a special "prequel" episode, originally taped in December of 2016 . Back then, Heat Rocks was just a mere glint in the eye Morgan and Oliver. All we had was a basic concept: how about a podcast devoted to doing deep dives into an album? We invited Univ. of Oregon musicologist Loren Kajikawa, author of Sounding Race In Rap Songs , to help us tackle one of the most important albums of the last 25 years: Dr. Dre's The Chronic , which just so happens to celebrate its 25th release anniversary...
Dec 15, 2017•40 min•Ep. 12
Artist and producer Suzi Analogue originally hails from Missy Elliott's native state of Virginia though these days, she's rooted in Los Angeles, having come up within the city's beat scene. Suzi wanted to talk about what she described as the "underdog" album, Missy's enormously successful yet somewhat forgotten sophomore album, Da Real World , one in a string of five back-to-back platinum LPs for Missy and her production partner, Timbaland. We talked about Missy's creative genius and what that m...
Dec 12, 2017•32 min•Ep. 11
