Curated playlist
Record producers from New York (state)
- MadonnaMadonna Louise Ciccone arrived in New York City in 1978 with thirty-five dollars in her pocket. It was the first time she had ever flown on a plane or ridden in a taxi. She would later call leaving college the bravest thing she had ever…
- Lady GagaStefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born on the 28th of March, 1986, at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She would grow up to sell an estimated 124 million records worldwide, become the first woman to hold the record for the…
- Jay-ZJay-Z was born Shawn Corey Carter on the 4th of December 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in the Marcy Houses, a public housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. His father, Adnis Reeves, left the family when…
- Marley MarlMarley Marl was the first producer who inspired Madlib to make beats. That single fact, drawn from an interview Madlib gave about his own origins, tells you something essential about the man born Marlon Lu'Ree Williams on the 30th of…
- Large ProfessorLarge Professor was born William Paul Mitchell on the 21st of March, 1972, in Harlem, Manhattan, then raised in Flushing, Queens. By the time he was eighteen years old, he had already helped shape one of hip-hop's most celebrated albums…
- Mariah CareyMariah Carey walked into a music executive's party in December 1988 as an unknown backup singer and left without speaking to anyone important. But she had handed her demo tape to Tommy Mottola, head of Columbia Records. He listened to it…
- Sean CombsSean Combs was born on the 4th of November 1969, in Harlem, New York City, and by the time he reached his mid-twenties he had reshaped American popular music from the inside. His label, Bad Boy Records, launched the career of the Notorious…
- Phil SpectorPhil Spector's father chose three words for his own gravestone: "To Know Him Was To Love Him." His son Harvey, nine years old when Benjamin Spector died by suicide in April 1949, turned that epitaph into a chart-topping song. "To Know Him…
- 50 Cent50 Cent was shot nine times at close range outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica, Queens, on the 24th of May 2000. The gunman fired with a 9mm handgun. The bullets struck his hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left…
- LL Cool JLL Cool J was four years old when he walked in on his father's act of violence. James Todd Smith found his mother and grandfather shot and bleeding inside the family home. That moment, recounted in the Chicago Tribune, is where the story…
- Kurtis BlowKurtis Blow stepped into a recording studio in 1979 as a twenty-year-old from Harlem, and walked out as the first rapper ever signed by a major label. That label was Mercury Records. The single they released, "Christmas Rappin'", sold over…
- MF DoomMF Doom died on the 31st of October 2020, in a Leeds hospital, from an adverse reaction to blood pressure medication. His wife, Jasmine, was not permitted to visit until that same day, kept away by a COVID-19 lockdown. For two months, no…
- Sylvia RobinsonIn 2022, Sylvia Robinson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Ahmet Ertegun Award category, the first woman to receive that honor unaccompanied by another person. She had been dead for eleven years. The recognition…
- Diana RossDiana Ross was born on the 26th of March 1944, and her very name was an accident. Her mother intended to call her Diane, but whoever filled out the birth certificate made a mistake, and the name Diana stuck on paper. Her family and every…