The name John Hillyard might be unfamiliar to many of our readers, even though you’ve likely seen him before. He is the man on the cover of US pressings of DJ Shadow’s single Midnight in a Perfect World (FFRR, 1997), and the source of many samples from Shadow’s seminal LP Endtroducing..... (Mo Wax, 1996). So who was he, and why did his photo appear on the Midnight record? 🎵 This article can be read while listening to a selection of songs John Hillyard worked on, songs made b

"I've always loved electro and old school rap. Stuff where if you get a feel for it, it's unmistakable and it's also undeniable..."

"When I first met Gab we went into a booth at KDVS and rapped first thing [...] we were just monks about freestyling..."

"I love the cat among the records! It's the notion that everything there has already gone through some kind of human cycle."

On Friday June 18, 2021 Timothy Jerome Parker aka The Gift of Gab passed away, aged 50. May he rest in peace.

"I was a Street Music Director who was in charge of all the mixshows. We brought in a lot of DJs [...] and Josh was one of them..."

"I worked at a record label called Poetic Groove [...] either ‘90 or ’91 and I was doing college promotions, sort of learning the industry."