PAY YOUR FRIEND$ with Cipha Sounds

Cipha Sounds hangs out with blues musician Seasick Steve and Matt Richards for a warm, loose conversation that turns into something special.

Seasick Steve talks real music, the blues, and life in Norway, then picks up one guitar and plays a song that stops the whole room and gets Ciph emotional. Matt Richards makes live art right there in the studio. Along the way they get into Dave Chappelle's cornfield jam sessions, the Biggie breakfast debate, McDonald's fries, and the time Ciph told Bootsy Collins how funk really works.

Cipha Sounds hangs out with producer Statik Selektah, comedian Julio Diaz, and SiriusXM host Destroy for a loose, wide-ranging conversation.

They get into Statik's new album and its stacked features, why real hip-hop travels further than any other genre (from New York to a club full of Japanese fans in Fukuoka), reggaeton and bachata's roots in hip-hop, Irish and Puerto Rican heritage, Star Wars versus Star Trek, and plenty of unfiltered New York stories along the way.

Catch Statik Selektah's new album out November 13th on Mass Appeal, Julio Diaz on YouTube (Ralph Barbosa Presents Julio Diaz), and Destroy on SiriusXM.

Cipha Sounds sits down with his brother Maino — Brooklyn rapper and co-host of the hit podcast Let's Talk About It — to talk about a friendship that goes back more than 15 years.

Maino shares the best advice for surviving your first day in jail, plus how he and Ciph really met (fresh out of a 10-year bid), his come-up to hit records like "Hi Hater," why elevation and reinvention are the real flex, and the pushback against rappers doing podcasts. It's two old friends talking real, unfiltered, and funny.

Catch Maino live at the American Dream on October 6th, and on Let's Talk About It.

Cipha Sounds hangs out with comedians Brendan Sagalow — hip-hop head and host of Sagdaddy the Pod — and Andre D. Thompson, recorded on 9/11.

Ciph takes them behind the scenes of the night before: DJing the NYC Still Rising 9/11 benefit at Madison Square Garden for John Stewart and Dave Chappelle, with Machine Gun Kelly, Pete Davidson, Bill Burr, Nikki Glaser and more. He breaks down the art of reading a comedy crowd on a somber night, secretly running the room from the DJ booth, and picking the right songs when you can't play half your set. From there it goes everywhere: retiring shirts after one photo, mistaking Chris Rock for a barback, surveillance culture, philosophy, and who really gets the credit for it.

Catch Brendan on tour at brennano.com and on Sagdaddy the Pod and Fart Carnival, and follow Andre D. Thompson everywhere @AndreDThompson.

Comedian Talia Romina shows up to the studio with a face full of facial oil after double-dosing NyQuil the night before, squeezing in a workout, and running straight from a 90-minute facial she thought was 50 minutes. Cipha gets the full story. Plus: the war on entitled cyclists in New York, whether being friendly to a waitress counts as flirting, the ultrasound tech who hits on Talia every six months during her liver checkup, and Cipha's case that he never gets hit on — which Talia spends the rest of the episode dismantling.

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Comedian Rahul Pandya lasted three days at a healthcare tech startup before getting fired over a Luigi Mangione joke his boss dug up on his social media. Cipha gets the full story. Plus: Cipha reveals he spent 20 minutes charming a woman at a Hollywood Hills party before finding out it was Charli XCX, Tom Cruise tracked him down in a green room to compliment his DJ set, the origin story behind Drake's "Shut Up Janice," why Jay-Z's post-retirement catalog doesn't hold up, and the eternal first date debate — drinks or dinner?

Cipha Sounds sits down with Bay Area rapper and producer P-Lo — in New York promoting his new album Out the Box — with comedian Salma Zaky in the room.

They get into what it really means to rep the Bay, the region's hip-hop culture and "same squad" spirit, coming up with HBK and Kehlani, how tech changed the Bay the way gentrification changed New York, and the time Dave Chappelle brought P-Lo out at a Super Bowl show.

Out the Box is out now, featuring E-40.

Cipha Sounds and Rocky Powell break down what actually went down backstage at the Lauryn Hill festival — the Fugees' 30th anniversary reunion with Wyclef Jean, Erykah Badu, Dave Chappelle, Giggs, and more.

Ciph tells the full story: flying to London for Dave's shows, thinking he was hosting, ending up playing dominoes in the crowd — and then getting rushed on stage with zero DJ equipment when Lauryn's setup ran long, tearing the whole thing down off a headphone jack while Dave hyped him up as a hip-hop legend. Plus the viral moment when they cut the sound, halal pepperoni, New Haven pizza in London, and why all of it has Ciph officially coming out of DJ retirement.

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Cipha Sounds links up in London with Seepa and Hugo — the guys behind pirate radio crew Kurupt FM from the BBC series People Just Do Nothing — for a deep dive into UK music and why it connects to New York more than Americans realize.

They break down the whole family tree — jungle, garage, grime, drum & bass, funky house, drill — and trace it all back to Jamaica and the Jamaica-London-New York-Toronto pipeline. Plus how Afrobeats crossed over, why UK actors keep taking the hood roles in American movies, London vs. New York on slang, food, and air conditioning, and the story of how Ciph ended up DJing for Jay-Z at Notting Hill Carnival.

Kurupt FM's new EP Goodma drops August 21st.

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Cipha Sounds hangs out with Brooklyn legends Smif-N-Wessun — Tek-N-Steele, aka the Cocoa Brovaz — for a real conversation about old New York, the culture, and staying true after 30 years in the game.