Lootpack: Soundpieces: Da Antidote! (3LP, primary colours vinyl) [STONES THROW RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This Primary Colors edition, made for Stones Throw's 30th anniversary, spreads all 24 tracks across three LPs, one primary colour per disc. It's the album that helped lift Stones Throw out of obscurity, with Madlib producing nearly every beat.

This edition

• 3LP set
• Primary colours vinyl (red, yellow and blue)
• Stones Throw 30th anniversary edition
• Stereo mix

About the album

Every great origin story needs a slightly unlikely starting point, and for Madlib it was Oxnard, a small town up the coast from Los Angeles, where he formed Lootpack with high school friends Wildchild and DJ Romes. Soundpieces: Da Antidote! came out on Peanut Butter Wolf's little label in 1999 and, group billing aside, it's basically Madlib's debut: he made the beats and wrote more than half the rhymes.

It's also where a very particular voice first turned up. Wolf heard the pitched-up rapping hiding at the end of a demo and, before long, Quasimoto was born; he pops up on "Answers." Elsewhere there's the nine-minute "Episodes," where the beat and the rapper change every few bars, plus "Long Awaited" with Dilated Peoples, "B-Boy Theme" and guests including Oh No, Tha Alkaholiks and Declaime, who also did the cover.

AllMusic's Steve Huey credited Madlib's production for much of its success and called him one of the West Coast's most imaginative trackmasters. It's an essential LP for anyone whose shelf already holds Madvillainy or The Unseen. On the interlude "20 Questions," Madlib interviews himself in character, which saves on booking a journalist.

Also at Kops: more Lootpack on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist

Listen

On Stones Throw (cat# STH2019), a reissue of the 1999 album.