Microphone Check show

Microphone Check

Summary: Welcome to Microphone Check, hip-hop culture with Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley. Transcripts, portraits and info at https://www.frannieandali.com/

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Podcasts:

 Freddie Gibbs: 'I'm Not Just Living For Myself' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 01:14:52

New father Freddie Gibbs spoke with Microphone Check about his inspirations, including the memoirs of Rick James and George Clinton, his business acumen, what the war in the streets is really about and, of course, Gucci.

 Pusha T: 'This Is What I Like To Make' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 01:15:21

The Virginia Beach denizen spoke to Microphone Check about the reverse troll he laid on Def Jam with Darkest Before Dawn, what it's like to go back and forth with Puffy, the fallacies of textbooks, the perils of ignoring the youth and where he's going with King Push.

 Logic: 'Do Something For Yourself' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:54:21

The rapper, who hails from Maryland but now resides in the Los Angeles area, came through to talk about the road to his second album, The Incredible True Story, fending off critics and the language he uses to to remind himself of his blessings and his possibilities.

 Mac Miller: 'It's OK To Feel Yourself' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 01:04:20

Mac Miller met us in LA, which he had recently left. Ali and Mac have known each other for some time, so this interview was a chance for them to reconnect on the other side of some months of internal turmoil and growth the Pittsburgh rapper had to get over. We spoke about fame, performance and wading through other people's prejudice when you're a rapper who's white.

 Masta Ace: 'I'm Still Trying To Prove Myself' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 01:40:46

Masta Ace had his first drink at a Cold Chillin' Christmas party. This was after he graduated from the University of Rhode Island. The national popularity of "Born to Roll" in the mid-'90s — and an amount of drama related to tensions between the coasts at that time — was a wrench thrown into his career, but he responded with Disposable Arts, an album released in October of 2001 that included features from three different women rapping. He made the album in the year after he was told he has multiple sclerosis. "I wanted to go out on my own terms. I re-dedicated myself to the craft in a different way, and I made my best music, I feel, after that diagnosis." Ace spoke with Microphone Check about commercial radio, coaching high school football and working as a guidance counselor, and why he continues to write and record as a solo artist and as part of eMC, which released The Tonite Show in May.

 Large Professor, Part 2: 'I Really Live Through This Music' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 01:06:11

This is the second half of Microphone Check's interview last year with producer and rapper Large Professor. You can listen to and read part one here http://www.npr.org/sections/microphonecheck/2015/07/29/424717271/large-professor-part-1-were-living-in-the-world-of-hip-hop. Part two covers the making of Illmatic, Paul C's role and Ali's favorite Extra P lines.

 Large Professor, Part 1: 'We're Living In The World of Hip-Hop' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:48:10

Last spring, way back in 2014, we sat down with Large Professor, partly on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Illmatic but mostly because he's the reason for much of the New York rap we both love so much.

 Microphone Check Live: Father | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:16:55

We spoke to Father, the rapper, producer and head of Awful Records, the breeding ground for iLoveMakonnen and Archibald SLIM and Slug Christ and Ethereal and Richposlim, while we were in Atlanta in May. Our onstage conversation was brief — Father was kind of the opener for our interview with Organized Noize — but covered a lot of ground fast.

 Vince Staples: 'My Job Is To Keep My Sanity' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 01:25:49

Vince Staples made his debut album, Summertime '06, so that people who hear it will know how he felt then, as a young teenager in Long Beach, Calif. "That's when we understood the power we had in fear," he says. "Because it's either they're scared of you or they're better than you. And no one wants to feel like anyone else is better than them. So we established fear." Who Vince means by "they" changes over the course of this interview, but throughout he acknowledges his complicity in a rigged system while laying the blame for its perpetuation at our own lazy, fearful feet. "I saw that all of it was fake, from the streets to music to the government to my own family to my parents to — all of it was not real," he says. "Look where I come from. Everyone's pretending they're not sad."

 Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Part 2: 'We Still Have The Forgotten People' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 01:05:45

This is the second special edition of Microphone Check, the back half of an interview that put one of our hosts in the hot seat. You can listen to and read part one here (https://soundcloud.com/npr-microphone-check/ali-shaheed-muhammad). Part two alternates between light-hearted and heavy, and though it was taped in May, it is painfully relevant in the wake of nine deaths in Charleston and the continuing terrorization of black people.

 Microphone Check Live: Organized Noize | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 01:47:56

On May 18th Microphone Check went to Atlanta to interview the three-man production team behind some of the greatest songs ever: every one on Outkast's Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, every one on Goodie Mob's Soul Food, TLC's "Waterfalls," En Vogue's "Don't Let Go," deep cuts and big hits everywhere. The people who came out to join the conversation and express their gratitude to Organized Noize included much of the Dungeon Family — Big Boi, Backbone and Mr. DJ got on mic, and Big Rube took Ray Murray's place on stage when Ray had to go celebrate his daughter's graduation from high school — and the whole room felt aligned and together and giddy. Ali said he was geeked, Frannie had the best time. We'll all do it again soon.

 Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Part 1: 'I Walk A Different Walk' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:47:54

We put our legendary co-host in the hot seat and he spoke on how he evaluates music, how his faith influences his work ethic and how much he cares about getting credit. And that's just the first half.

 Industry Rules No. 1-4079: A Conversation With Lawyer Julian Petty | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:01

The following should not be construed as legal advice — just good advice. We asked Julian Petty, who represents Ali, Earl Sweatshirt, Vince Staples and the estate of Biggie Smalls — and at one time worked with Michael Jackson, Prince and Stevie Wonder — to come see us at Microphone Check as part of our continued effort to put ever more people on game. "People get got most commonly because of time pressure," he says. "They're very excited. This is their dream. And someone just pushes a document in front of them and is like, 'Hey, man. We gotta close this. We gotta knock this out now. We're supposed to be shooting a video next week.' And it's really that pressure, this person thinking, 'My dream is on this piece of paper.'"

 Iamsu: 'I Heard That Beat Totally Different' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 01:09:46

When we sat down with Iamsu, the Bay Area rapper had just as many questions for Ali as we had for him. The three of us spoke about not putting anybody on a pedestal and what would happen if more people in hip-hop brought their moms to the situation.

 Amber London: 'I'ma Show You How It's Done' | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:48:47

Amber London made the trip from Houston to Austin to perform her first official shows at SXSW, which provided the perfect occasion for an interview long in the making. We tried to not get stuck on the topic of life as a female rapper, but London's experiences as, at once, a member of an all-girl posse in search of songs hard enough for them, the only woman in the room (or studio or bus) and a person strangers underestimate, turn out to be fundamental to her style. "My stage presence is so aggressive because I like the feeling of being an underdog," she says. "I like that it might be one person that give me that look like, 'What is she about to do?' That's who I'm speaking to when I get on stage. I like to prove people like — girls — no matter what I look like, it's all about the music, and I'ma show you how to really rap. I'ma show you how it's done."

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