Microphone Check — the place where artists can talk about whatever concerns and interests they have, where they feel free to sound off and fan out on Ali Shaheed Muhammad and tell stories they’ve never told in public before — is back. February

Ill Camille

Jul 18th, 2017 1h 15m

Ill Camille was born and raised and still resides in Los Angeles, for the moment, and in March she released an album called Heirloom that we really love. We spoke to her about all her various jobs in the music industry, a path that eventually l

Z-Ro

Jun 19th, 2017 1h 3m

We taped this interview before we had any idea Z-Ro would later announce his retirement from music – he's said the album he's releasing on June 30th, No Love Boulevard, will be his last. It's our loss, especially because you can tell here (bac

kris ex, Part 2

Jun 12th, 2017 1h 11m

To situate you in this episode, we left off last week when kris asked Ali how it would feel for his work today to be criticized and Ali’s response began with him saying he’s not worried about it because he’s right with himself, brought it back

kris ex, Part 1

Jun 5th, 2017 1h 38m

This first episode of the rest of our podcast’s life isn’t a straight ahead interview with a musician. Instead we asked music writer kris ex to come in and talk about the value of music journalism, especially its usefulness to musicians, and we

Doc McKinney: 'There's Enough Bad Music Out There'

Oct 24th, 2016 1h 35m

Doc McKinney, the Minneapolis-born, Toronto-living producer and manager who's worked with Lucy Pearl, The Weeknd, Drake, Young Buck, Esthero and thestand4rd spoke with us about brands and music — he had a reluctant hand in the Hamburger Helper

Warren G: 'It's A Cold Game'

Jul 8th, 2016 1h 14m

Last summer we linked with Warren G for the last interview we tried to do bicoastal. And it's fitting that one of the main instigators of G-funk music was the one who convinced us to move operations to LA. We're airing it now, because despite s

Rap Dads, Daughters And Sons: The Father's Day Episode

Jun 17th, 2016 37m 50s

Our producer, David Luke, father of David Luke III, put together this special edition of Microphone Check, a compliation of times when the musicians we've sat with over the past couple years spoke about fatherhood.When we interviewed these gu

Sophia Chang: 'Don't Ever Be Afraid Of Your Passion'

Jun 6th, 2016 1h 28m

The music industry veteran, former manager of the RZA, the GZA and ODB, as well as D'Angelo, Raphael Saadiq and A Tribe Called Quest, met up with Microphone Check in LA, where she told us what Wu-Tang taught her and how she thinks of her role:

Gizzle: 'I Mean For It To Matter'

May 10th, 2016 1h 6m

Gizzle is the one behind the curtain. Quiet as it's kept, she's written many of the biggest and best-loved rap and R&B songs of the recent past, in the course of working with everybody from Puffy to Nicki to Teddy Riley to Pharrell, Snoop, Chri

OG Maco: 'I Want To Give The World A Fighting Chance'

Apr 13th, 2016 1h 10m

The Atlanta rapper spoke with us in March, between the first and second of the three tours he's booked this year. We got into perspective, influence and frustration, but the point we kept returning to was agency. "I don't want anybody to do exa

Terrace Martin: 'I Believe You Should Be Yourself'

Apr 8th, 2016 1h 39m

Terrace Martin takes his job very seriously. Here's just a taste of what he sees as at stake when he goes to work: "You got the Marines. You got the Army. We are the only people that soothe them. The art community are the only people that sooth

Dean Blunt: 'Every Day Is A Lifetime'

Apr 1st, 2016 56m 47s

Hip-hop music and culture informs most things, including works of art and creative expression that don't sound anything like an MC over a break beat. Though not everybody would file Dean Blunt's output as music that falls under the purview of M

Saul Williams: 'Let's Go Further And Further Out'

Feb 18th, 2016 1h 20m

The artist and thinker, who just released a new album that's only one part of a larger multimedia conception, takes us from the drummers of Burundi to Adam Ant, Octavia Butler to David Bowie, Rakim to Young Thug. We also hit on ageism in rap, a

Mr. MFN eXquire: 'I Evolved As A Man'

Feb 5th, 2016 1h 5m

Crown Heights came to North Hollywood so we could talk about crossed signals on the highways between artist and industry. We also got into rap performance, being superstitious about writing, being not great about networking and this feeling: "I

Freddie Gibbs: 'I'm Not Just Living For Myself'

Jan 12th, 2016 1h 14m

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'

Dec 22nd, 2015 1h 15m

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'

Logic: 'Do Something For Yourself'

Nov 12th, 2015 54m 21s

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

Mac Miller: 'It's OK To Feel Yourself'

Sep 29th, 2015 1h 4m

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

Masta Ace: 'I'm Still Trying To Prove Myself'

Sep 2nd, 2015 1h 40m

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 th

Large Professor, Part 2: 'I Really Live Through This Music'

Aug 20th, 2015 1h 6m

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-li

Large Professor, Part 1: 'We're Living In The World of Hip-Hop'

Jul 29th, 2015 48m 10s

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

Jul 1st, 2015 16m 55s

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 — Fath

Vince Staples: 'My Job Is To Keep My Sanity'

Jul 1st, 2015 1h 25m

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 sca

Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Part 2: 'We Still Have The Forgotten People'

Jun 24th, 2015 1h 5m

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 t