Ali Shaheed Muhammad
Ali Shaheed Muhammad is a world-renowned producer, songwriter and musician, and a founding member of A Tribe Called Quest, Lucy Pearl and production group The Ummah. He cowrote D'Angelo's "Brown Sugar" and has worked with John Legend, Maxwell, Mint Condition, Angie Stone, Mos Def and Gil Scott-Heron among many others.
He's the co-host of the Microphone Check podcast with Frannie Kelley.
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"I'm telling the fans what I'm trying to tell myself because nobody was telling me at the time," says the rapper, who hails from Maryland. -
"It's liberating to realize you have the freedom to make mistakes. You have the time," says the Pittsburgh rapper, who lifted himself out of a dark period. "Because you're so small."
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"In Flushing, Queens, where I came from, we're right down the block from this fair, the Globe. Something about that town, it's just Olympic, Olympiad kind of a — we wanted to jump the highest." -
We spoke to the rapper, producer and head of Awful Records, while we were in Atlanta in May. Our onstage conversation was brief but covered a lot of ground fast.
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We went to Atlanta to talk to the three-man production team behind some of the greatest songs ever: Ray Murray, Rico Wade and Sleepy Brown.
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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. -
The producer and multi-instrumentalist on the Kendrick Lamar album he's working on, Snoop and love. -
"The best way to represent the places where you from is be yourself, completely," says the musician and actor. -
The Oakland group most widely known for the ageless "93 'til Infinity" has made a new concept album based on a true story. To make it, they went old school. -
The rapper from Gary, Ind., moved to L.A. 10 years ago, where he met Madlib, a producer revered for his collaborations. The two of them have now made an album Gibbs thinks can't be touched.
