Microphone Check

Back in 2011 two rappers from Tennessee, Starlito and Don Trip, made a mixtape called Step Brothers. They were rhyming over original production and had sprinkled clips from the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly movie of the same name throughout the tape. Step Brothers outperformed everything the two of them had released previously and everything they did on their own after it, until this fall, when they released an album called Step Brothers 2.

While in New York on business, Don Trip and Starlito spoke to Microphone Check co-hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley about where they come from, their definition of trap music and relationships, both working and romantic.

We all listen to music differently. What we hear is shaded by our history, our knowledge, our equipment, our mood, our taste. But every year there are moments when everybody who lives and breathes hip-hop is talking about the same thing.

In June, when Jay's Samsung/Magna Carta Holy Grail ad aired during game 5 of the NBA finals. A Thursday in April when Pusha T's "Numbers on the Boards" dropped. A Friday night in May, when Kanye's face appeared on buildings all over the country. The middle of September, when Drake's Nothing Was the Same leaked. The evening in August when Funkmaster Flex dropped — with his bomb sound — Kendrick Lamar's verse on Big Sean's "Control."

For this episode of Microphone Check co-hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley are joined by their social media manager, Cedric Shine. All three of them experienced those disruptions differently — and their opinions of both their meaning and the quality of the music at their root are not unanimous. Their conversation ranges from Ali's inside track on Magna Carta to Troy Ave, ASAP Ferg, music journalism's involvement in Kanye's year and how the quality of life in New York City is affecting the music being made there.

This month Bun B, one half of the Underground Kingz, of Port Arthur, Texas, released his fourth solo project and celebrated the 21st anniversary of his group's first album, Too Hard To Swallow. The road Bun has walked over those years hasn't always been smooth. In 2007 his partner Pimp C died, and, in their early days, the duo's musical and critical success wasn't hitting their wallets.

"I had literally the No. 1 record in the city and was delivering soul food dinners because we were making absolutely no money from the record company," says Bun about the period between 1992 and 1995. "We went to the radio station, asked them could we go on the air, and told the public we were broke. Our record company had us in a crazy contract, management had us in a crazy contract, so if they see us and we don't look a certain way, don't think it's a misuse of funds on our part. We're not getting it. If you're paying the record company for this music, the money's not getting to us."

Bun B also spoke with Microphone Check hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley about Lil Boosie, Ed O.G. and the real meaning of trill.

The rapper and producer Earl Sweatshirt put out his first major label album, called Doris, this summer. Earl came up with the free-wheeling, button-pushing rap group Odd Future, then disappeared, sent by his mother to boarding school in Samoa. His friends mourned his absence loudly and when he came home in the winter of 2012, no one was sure he'd be able to deliver on his earlier promise.

Earl produced almost half the songs on Doris, which features many of his friends, including the rapper Vince Staples. Vince joined Earl in a conversation with Microphone Check hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley. They spoke about the music business, how to tell if a song is any good and an encounter with Sir Paul McCartney that happened right before they sat down.

All year Morning Edition and NPR Music have been running radio pieces about rap albums released 20 years ago, in 1993. For a special episode of Microphone Check we invited a group of people who were working in hip-hop back then to meet us at the Ace Hotel in New York City and tell stories about that productive and creative year.

Our guests were:

Faith Newman — A&R at Def Jam and then Columbia, who signed Nas.

Ralph McDaniels — host of Video Music Box, music video director and producer.

Prince Paul — producer for De La Soul and the Gravediggaz, member of Handsome Boy Modeling School and solo musician.

Mike Dean — engineer and producer at Rap-A-Lot Records.

Stretch Armstrong — DJ for WKCR's Stretch & Bobbito radio show.

In the second part of an interview with Pusha T, Microphone Check co-host Ali Shaheed Muhammad is dragged into a public battle over which A Tribe Called Quest album is better — Low End Theory or Midnight Marauders. Pusha details his frustrations with the music industry in general, and one fashion company in particular, and says his dream for hip-hop is for legacy acts to tour like The Eagles. "I don't think I will ever put any other music before it, so I need to see it all the way through. I need to see it in all of its splendor," he says. When co-host Frannie Kelley tries to end their conversation on a high note, Pusha recalls the making of the last song on his new album, a song that comes from a hard truth: "I don't necessarily want to hear rap anymore that doesn't give me — if we're talking about the streets — we can't just glorify it. We have to tell the whole story."

This week rapper Pusha T released his first solo album after years of writing and performing as a duo, with his brother Malice in the Clipse. But he's not all on his own. Pusha is part of Kanye West's conglomerate — the two of them made Yeezus and My Name Is My Name simultaneously — and still works closely with Pharrell, who he's known since they were in high school in Virginia Beach.

In the first part of an interview with Microphone Check hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley, Pusha decries the current state of hip-hop, saying he looked to rap made between 1994 and 1999 for inspiration while making My Name Is My Name: "Hip-hop to me right now is really easy listening. It's very easy listening, like there's nothing abrasive about it. There's no album that I put in my car that makes me roll down the windows — all the windows — and ride past the club line three times before I get out the car. The Purple Tape made me do that."

This week rapper Pusha T released his first solo album after years of writing and performing as a duo, with his brother Malice in the Clipse. But he's not all on his own. Pusha is part of Kanye West's conglomerate — the two of them made Yeezus and My Name Is My Name simultaneously — and still works closely with Pharrell, who he's known since they were in high school in Virginia Beach.

In the first part of an interview with Microphone Check hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley, Pusha decries the current state of hip-hop, saying he looked to rap made between 1994 and 1999 for inspiration while making My Name Is My Name: "Hip-hop to me right now is really easy listening. It's very easy listening, like there's nothing abrasive about it. There's no album that I put in my car that makes me roll down the windows — all the windows — and ride past the club line three times before I get out the car. The Purple Tape made me do that."

Marley Marl is one of the most important people in hip-hop history. He's the one who figured out how to sample — how to get pieces of songs off vinyl records and into a drum machine. More than 30 years later, and 25 years after his first album, 1988's In Control Vol. 1, he sat down with Microphone Check hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley to tell stories about the moment he realized what his discovery meant, why the New York City Housing Authority should get a co-producer credit on some of his records and how he and LL Cool J got inspired to make Mama Said Knock You Out.

The seminal producer also tells stories about Mr. Magic, Pete Rock, Big Daddy Kane and Biz Markie.