We close season 2 with two very special guests, a pair of photographers and documentarians without whom our path in this music thing wouldn't be the same. Brian "B+" Cross and Eric Coleman met in the early 1990s. One was an immigrant from Ireland recently arrived on the US west coast to study, the other was an Angeleno, and they both had a deep love for and interest in the then burgeoning hip-hop culture and the artform of photography. In 1997 they setup Mochilla, a production company through which they've documented beat culture in motion via a series of crucial documentary films, events, as well as ongoing work for artists like Kamasi Washington, Damian Marley, and Quantic. Individually they've shot some of the most loved and memorable hip-hop covers, including DJ Shadow and Madvillain, and have been involved in a wide variety of projects both officially and behind the scenes. But what really makes Mochilla important is that they are elders with a genuine passion and interest in the history that has been unfolding for the past 40 years and the understanding that it deserves to be shared and treasured. We couldn't be happier to wrap up season 2 with them, especially as we've spent so much time in LA this season.  

This episode was edited and produced by Laurent Fintoni. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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For the penultimate episode of season 2 we welcome one of the kindest and most eloquent proponent of beat culture we have the pleasure to know: Alfred Darlington aka Daedelus. Since the early 2000s, Darlington has been an integral node in the LA underground connecting seemingly disparate scenes and sounds from rave to folk, jazz to IDM. An original dublab 'rat', classically trained bass player, and early user of custom digital control devices, Darlington has released over 20 albums, both solo and in collaboration with Frosty, Laura Darlington, Busdriver and Radioinactive and Kneebody. Equally important has been their role as a live performer, using the monome to take productions outside the studio as well as create mindbending DJ sets that remain some of the best encapsulations of the late 2000s and early 2010s beat scene explosion and its cross pollination with dance music. All of this, as well as their unequalled eloquence of what this music and culture is and represents, has naturally led to a recent role as a faculty member within Berklee's Electronic Digital Instrument program. 

This episode was edited and produced by Laurent Fintoni. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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On this week's episode of A Beat Happening we welcome a producer from Detroit who rarely gives interviews but whose music has been an inspiration to those in the culture with keen ears for over a decade: dakim. Coming to the attention of many in the late 2000s, when he relocated to Los Angeles and involved himself in the local scene, and early 2010s, thanks in part to his central role in Gus Sutherland's sadly unreleased All Ears documentary, dak has been a quiet force as a producer unafraid of experimenting with the potentials of beat culture beyond its most obvious representations. As comfortable with sample chops as he is with jit rhythms, drones, and layered compositions, dak's music traverses internal universes. he has released primarily via his own ddust label and matthewdavid's Leaving Records, and has taken on aliases such as Saafron and Peoplemover to represent different sides of his output or creative approach. Based out of San Francisco since leaving LA, he is a true producer's producer and we are very grateful to have him on the show to discuss his career, creative process, and perceptions of beat culture.

This episode was edited and produced by Laurent Fintoni. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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This week we welcome to the show the only DJ to hold a residency at both Sketchbook and Low End Theory: Elvin Estela aka Nobody. Originally from Carson, Elvin fell into the world of hip-hop and beat making via college radio, including Mike Nardone's KXLU show We Came From Beyond, and trips to South Central LA to hear what was happening at the Good Life and soon after Project Blowed. He befriended Omid and others who turned him onto new ideas and eventually parlayed an early beat tape into an album deal with San Francisco label Ubiquity, which released his debut album, Soulmates, in 2000. Taking a cue from the likes of DJ Shadow, Mumbles, and DJ Hive, Nobody made dusty beats but where others leaned on funk and soul he instead focused on psych rock, which at the time was still largely ignored as a sample source. In the following years he befriended Prefuse 73 and learnt to DJ in order to promote his music, eventually ending up as one of the irregular residents at Sketchbook before becoming one of the founding residents at Low End Theory, where a close proximity to the new generation of producers led him to evolve his sound towards the dancefloor both on his own and in collaboration with Low End's host, Nocando. 

This episode was edited and produced by Laurent Fintoni. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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This week on A Beat Happening we are very happy to welcome Jimetta Rose: a singer, songwriter, and community activist whose radiance and energy has powered the LA scene for over a decade. The South Central native began her career in the late 2000s collaborating with the likes of Shafiq Husayn and Georgia Anne Muldrow, before self-releasing her debut in 2010. She spent most of that decade as a go-to vocalist, working with House Shoes, Blu, Quelle Chris, Quantic and many more. In 2016 she reunited with Georgia for a second album, and just this year she released an album with Shoes' Street Corner Music and the debut from her new project, The Voices of Creation. Inspired by the transformative power of music, The Voices of Creation is a choir led by Jimetta that combines the spiritual jazz, gospel, and soul music that have all been integral to her solo work and now find themselves amplified through community. Jimetta's dedication to the late Ras G, I Met A Mountain, as performed by the choir is a poignant and essential tribute that speaks to the deep spiritual roots that run across the LA underground but are rarely highlighted. A true lodestar of soul music, Jimetta Rose continues to shine a light for us all to follow. 

This episode was edited and produced by Laurent Fintoni. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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This week we welcome Dibiase to the podcast, a veteran of the Los Angeles underground, the man responsible for that boombox outside Sketchbook, and one of the nicest people we know. The Watts native cut his teeth alongside Ras G at Project Blowed, eventually becoming an integral part of the producer community that flourished around the night's MC showcases and which took full flight in the mid 2000s with dedicated beat showcases. It's also around this time that his name began to spread outside of LA thanks in no small part to MySpace, where his early video game flips gained him worldwide recognition, and to various beat battles he took part in across the USA and Canada. But what separates Dibi from many of his peers is his love of and dedication to the craft of beat making and the idea that it isn't what you use but how you use it: from traditional samplers to calculators, Dibi has shown many that you can use almost anything to make a dope beat. In recent years this approach has led him to work more closely with manufacturers like Roland as well as take on more of an educator role within online communities through Twitter and Twitch. 

This episode was edited and produced by Laurent Fintoni. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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For season 2, episode 2 we welcome our first mastering engineer to the show. Kelly Hibbert might not be a name you instantly recognize but you've heard his work for many of your favorites including Flying Lotus, Madlib, and Knxwledge as well as Hiatus Kayote, Arca, and Q-Tip. Originally a drummer, DJ, and studio engineer, Kelly worked privately, including a stint on Paul Allen's yacht, before moving into mastering in the early 2000s under the tutelage of Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters in Los Angeles. At the time, Elysian was the go to studio for many lesser understood artists in hip-hop and electronic music and this threw Kelly into the deep end of what would eventually become the beat scene of the late 2000s. In the following decade, Kelly setup his own studio, Almachrome, in Costa Rica, where he continues to work today. 

This episode was edited and produced by Laurent Fintoni. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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For the first episode of Season 2 we welcome House Shoes. Originally from Detroit, now an adopted Angeleno, Shoes is a DJ, producer, and label head who started working at local record stores in the Detroit area where he befriended a young Jay Dee. Soon after he became host of the hip-hop room at St. Andrew's Hall in the 1990s, setting himself on a path to become an ambassador for his city to the world for the next decade. In the early 2010s, he moved away from beat making to set up Street Corner Music (named after the record shop where his career began), through which he supports new and established talent and acts as an ambassador for dope shit, regardless of origin. Through it all he has remained a DJ's DJ, with deep crates and a deep understanding of the music, and an opinionated commentator of a culture he loves deeply. 

This episode was edited and produced by Laurent Fintoni. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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On this week's show we close season 1 with Chris Cole AKA Black Monk, a producer and engineer from Los Angeles who was an early supporter and collaborator of Ras G. Growing up in the Inland Empire, Monk became involved in LA's music scene through attendance at Project Blowed, where he first met G, and as a studio engineer working with Death Row. He was responsible for introducing G to Poo-Bah's owner Ron, which led to setting up the store's label and its debut beat series in the late 2000s that featured the pair alongside Samiyam, Ta'Raach, Kan Kick, Take and more. Today, he works in film but his time in music and being involved in the early days of the beat scene remains foundational.   

This episode was edited and produced by Laurent Fintoni and Will Horrocks. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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On this week's show we welcome Gregory Feldwick AKA Slugabed, a producer who has been cutting a distinctive path through beat culture over the past decade. Starting in the MySpace days as part of the Donky Pitch collective in Brighton, Greg made neon bright and bass heavy beats with simple tools (read: FruityLoops) which caught the attention of Planet Mu and eventually Ninja Tune, where he released his 2012 debut album Time Team. Following this, he co-founded the Activia Benz label with Jake Slee, releasing work by a young Iglooghost, Sega Bodega, and DZA among many. The second album came in 2017, Inherit the Earth for Anticon, refining the early over the top sound towards the current surrealist beat paintings that can be heard on his latest full length, We Have The Window Open At Night. 

This episode was edited and produced by Will Horrocks. Intro and outro music by Duke Westlake. Artwork by Kutmah. Design assistance by Paper Resistance and Brandy Flower. This show is a labor of love and if you enjoy what you hear and would like to support us in being able to continue, you can donate via PayPal at https://paypal.me/abeathappening.

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