Transcribed from the December/January 2008 issue of Wax Poetics, Evidence (of Dilated Peoples) runs down the rap records that heavily influenced his life and his rap career. Enjoy and be educated.

Nas Illmatic (Columbia, 1994)

Evidence: Not one single bar is wasted here. And it’s such a short album! Not counting the intro, it’s really just nine song. And if you want to go even further, “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” and “Halftime” were released before. Never in my life was I so happy to get seven new songs! [laughs] Pete Rock, Premier, and Large Professor were obviously having friendly competition against one another. It was not only a rapper’s dream, but, from a production standpoint, it stands as well. The fact that the production wasn’t carrying Nas, but that all the elements carried each other, is unmatched. It’s magic.

Gang Starr Moment of Truth (Noo Trybe, 1998)

Evidence: I know people will debate me on this and will say Hard to Earn or Step in the Arena. But, for me, everything just came together on Moment of Truth. The guests were chosen perfectly and Premier’s production was smooth as ever. I love how everyone goes and gets Premier’s beat, but not everyone gets Premier’s Gang Starr beats. [laughs] The kind of beats he lays Guru are a cut above his other work, it seems. “Robbin Hood Theory” and “Above the Clouds” are perfect modern-day rap songs. That’s a newer album, and most of my favorites are from the late ’80′s, but, for me, it’s a very influential recent record.

Pharcyde Bizarre Ride II: The Pharcyde (Delicious Vinyl, 1992)

Evidence: This was the first time I heard rappers letting their guard down. They were talking about jacking off and how wack they were. [laughs] It opened my eyes to comedy in rap music. For me, hip-hop is a very serious thing, and I never dug it when cats were goofy. But Pharcyde was genuine. J-Swift was a very different producer at the time, and Fatlip is one of the most endearing rappers ever. They proved that you didn’t have to act hard to get signed. They sort of carried De La’s motto of “We don’t give a fuck [how] you view us!” I love the honesty and fun of it all.

Ice Cube AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (Priority, 1990)

Evidence: We all knew Cube was going solo, but to have Bomb Squad produce it was insanity. The first time I heard it, I was, like, thirteen years old. My mom didn’t like me riding in cars with my friends at the time, so I had to sneak out my house to listen to this tape. [laughs] We heard the whole album, and, at that point, it was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. The way it was put together, I don’t think there’s been another project with that kind of history. It’d ben an ultimate production record if it were an instrumental project too. Cube was so damn aggressive but swift at the time.

Tha Alkaholiks Coast II Coast (Loud, 1995)

Evidence: I’m from L.A., so Tha Liks were my rhyming heroes. This is their second album, and I think it’s flawless. Diamond D, E-Swift and Madlib’s contributions were amazing. I know most people don’t consider this to be classic material, but, as far as influencing me and showing me how to put a record together, it is. I modeled Dilated after Tha Liks in many ways – having the cohesiveness of sound, and being smart but hard at times too. They were from the West but were also respected in the East. They transcended location, and that opened my eyes a lot. This album changed my outlook on group dynamics.

A Tribe Called Quest Midnight Marauders (Jive, 1993)

Evidence: This hit me at a certain time and stuck. The interludes was crazy as shit. I think you could tell that it was a classic as soon as the first snare hit. From the very first horns, I was hooked. Ali Shaheed was killing it. And tip is such a timeless rapper. He just had an ill swagger on this one. I think it has one of the best opening records of any record ever made.

Jeru Da Damaja The Sun Rises in the East (Payday, 1994)

Evidence: The production changed the way a lot of records were made after it. WHen I first heard “Come Clean,” I thought it was the best song I had ever heard. [laughs] “Bitches,” “Mindspray,” the whole album was incredible. Jeru sounded great on every song. That epitomizes raw hip-hop right there. He knew how to ride the beats perfectly. Its rawness changed how I viewed a lot of my own records.

Notorious B.I.G. Ready to Die (Bad Boy, 1994)

Evidence: So much personality! It was so brand-new, so many images and pictures, with such a commanding voice and interesting flow. He always reminded me of King Tee. He just had a commanding presence, and, once again, you have Premier, Lord Finesse, and just so many different dynamics working together. Very few artists understand how to cover the whole spectrum, and everyone, from gangstas to backpackers, couldn’t deny it. How could you?

Eric B. and Rakim Paid in Full (4th & Broadway, 1987)

Evidence: This is the oldest one on the list, because it’s probably the first record I learned something from. I was at my boy DEN’s house when I first heard it. DEN was a graffiti artist who was really into punk music. I wasn’t expecting to hear hip-hop at his house, but he played this one day, and the first song was “Eric B. Is President.” He was playing that shit real loud too! I never heard a voice like Rakim’s before. That was the only time I was taken so hard by music [that] I didn’t know what to do. And the thing with Rakim, for me, is that he’s so simplistic. His messages are complex, but his approach and cadence is easy to follow. For example, abstract art is incredible, but very few people can walk up to an empty canvas and draw a perfect circle. That’s how Rakim is for me, he’s one of the few who can draw a perfect circle.

Easy Mo Bee runs down some of the records that helped shape the sound of his timeless production work. Transcribed from the May/June 2010 “Hip-Hop issue” of Wax Poetics. Enjoy and be educated.

Otis Redding The Immortal Otis Redding (Atco, 1968)

Easy Mo Bee: This was his posthumous album, and it has “Hard to Handle” on it. My father used to play this from front to back. Otis had this no-holds-barred style. For example, he never had background vocals in any of his tracks. “I’ve Got Dreams” is the only Otis track I can think of that has background vocals. It was just always him up front. When you listen to this album, you hear my favorite all-time band, Booker T. and his crew, and they always kept it tight. The use of bass, drums, guitars, and how they were used are effects I would later imitate.

James Brown There It Is (Polydor, 1972)

Easy Mo Bee: First of all, the album contains a lot of funk. I remember being real young and having the fear of drugs instilled in me by James on this album. As I got older, I attribute not doing certain things other kids were doing because of this album. I love horns, and the horns are incredible on this. Fred Wesley’s arrangement and, of course, the whole staccato bass lines are just classic JB. This is one of those ones that always stood out to me. “I’m a Greedy Man,” “Talking Loud and Sayin’ Nothing,” and “Public Enemy #1″? C’mon, man.

Sly and the Family Stone There’s a Riot Goin’ On (Epic, 1971)

Easy Mo Bee: This showed sly transitioning and experimenting with drum machines. If you listen to “Family Affair,” you can hear it along with the live instrumentation. This album also allows you to listen to an artist just totally fucked up while they were performing. [laughs] He was high for most of the album, and you can tell. On “Just Like a Baby,” there’s this bluesy gospel thing going on, and Sly is literally drooling all over the song. It’s actually intoxicating. It makes you believe in his music, because here’s a dude that’s totally high, and yet, you depend on him to do his thing.

Aretha Franklin Lady Soul (Atlantic, 1968)

Easy Mo Bee: This album makes me think, “Wow.” From this, I learned about the arrangement of horns. Much later, being a producer and having to work with people, not just rappers but vocalists as well, I learned how people should sing and project their voice. Aretha taught me to listen to how voices should sound and be projected. I mean, just listen to the album. I always credit this with teaching me a lot.

Booker T. and the MGs Melting Pot (Stax, 1971)

Easy Mo Bee: Man, I’ve listened to this back and forth many, many times. You can tell, because the first chance I got to do something, I sampled this to death. [laughs] If you listen to Words from the Genius, you’ll hear how much I love it. But I’m a big fan of the Stax [label] in general. The guitars and the Hammond organ sounds thrill me. The drumming is incredible. I mean, you have complex drum players, and you also have simple geniuses like Al Jackson who just kept the beat perfectly. Again, Booker T. and the MGs is my favorite all-time band.

Curtis Mayfield Super Fly (Curtom, 1972)

Easy Mo Bee: The arrangement and instrumentation was so tight, so funk, and so soulful. Of course, a record like this influenced me. And the narrative about the pusher causing devastation to masses? It really struck me too. I always wondered how Curtis, being such the positive guy he was, could also make a record that was so dark. He made this through the eyes of another man, but you believed him. He really touched the minds of people and made them understand the effects drugs were having on the Black community. Musically, this is another big influence on me too. Super Fly wasn’t a glorification; it was a teaching lesson.

Al Green I’m Still in Love with You (Hi Records, 1972)

Easy Mo Bee: This one’s crazy. Of course, Al sounds amazing, but I love this mostly because of Willie Mitchell’s work on it. It has that traditional Willie MItchell sound, and I always loved anything Willie produced. But on this particular record, he was at his pinnacle. I mean, he did Syl Johnson, Ann Peebles, a lot of other stuff too. But this one is one of the best, most complete Willie Mitchell albums ever. Let’s Stay Together is really close, but if I was on an island and had to really choose between the two, I would go with this one.

The Love Unlimited Orchestra Rhapsody in White (20th Century Records, 1974)

Easy Mo Bee: This one contains “Love’s Theme,” which is interesting to me, because as a kid, I always knew this was the big single off the album. We didn’t have money to buy a lot of records, but when I did, I discovered there were so many other great songs on there. “What a Groove” and “Baby Blues” come to mind. I was always interested in how this album fused together funk and orchestral strings. You got all these funk sounds with orchestral layers on top? Wow. I remember thinking it was one of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard in my life.

Kraftwerk Trans-Europe Express (Capitol, 1977)

Easy Mo Bee: My dad pretty much had a soul, funk, and jazz format going on in our house. As far as I’m concerned, my father had a radio station in the crib. As I began to grow, I learned to accept other forms of music, and Krafwerk was a huge factor in doing that. It also helped me get down with electronic music. A lot of people might disagree, but I believe some electronic music has a lot of soul in it. This one was my introduction to electronic music and is where my love for it started. And of course, this led to “Planet Rock” too. [laughs]

Sly and the Family Stone Stand (Epic, 1969)

Easy Mo Bee: One more Sly record! But this one is real important to me. I mean, it has the great “Sing a Simple Song” on it. In terms of lessons in funk, this had it all. It had a very universal sound and projected the fact that Sly was a special person – him and the Family Stone were. And they weren’t just funky, they had a little bit of gospel, rock, jazz and everything. The best way I could describe it is to say it had a very universal sound that everyone could get down with – I certainly did. This might be the most important record to me, in terms teaching and influencing me.

A true leader is someone who helps others get to where they want to be. That “where” can be a geographical location, a state of mind, or a more abstract goal. Whether acting as chief executive officer, head of state, or spiritual guru, leaders are empowered after demonstrating that they possess the vision and drive to help their followers’ progress—though they’re not always unanimously popular.

Chapter 51: Leaders takes a FRANK look at leadership by speaking with influential individuals currently shaping our world. We cover not only those whose success is measured by their following and financial statements, but also the men and women who lead in less easily quantified ways.

Chapter 51 features interviews with Jake Burton, Lama Tsering Everest, Jonathan Mannion, Eddie Huang, Circe Wallace, DJ Hiro, Timothy Wyllie, Nick Diamond, and many more.

The newly formatted Chapter 51: Leaders hits streets early April.

Watch Timothy Wyllie talk cults with Dust La Rock for Frank151 Chapter 51:

Frank 151 is an international independent content creation and distribution company located in New York City, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Barcelona. Each quarter they release a pocket-sized book called The Frank Book. The Frank Book covers music, art, culture, lifestyle and everything else in between. You can subscribe to The Frank Book for only $20. Each subscription lasts one year, and 4 issues are released each year.

If you are not familiar with Frank 151/The Frank Book, I have listed some of my favorite articles of theirs below. Enjoy and be educated.

• Behind The Board: Bob Power
• The Native Son: Chi-Ali
• Student Teacher: Dan Inosanto
• In My House: Todd Edwards & Alain Macklovitch (DJ A-Trak)
• Golden Eye: Chris Blackwell (Founder of Island Records)
• Rare Grooves: DJ Muro

For years, hip-hop fans have been robbed of context and background when buying and enjoying classic albums from the Golden Age: the 1980s. “Rakim Told Me” brings you these invisible liner notes, one album at a time, with new angles and engaging stories. 21 albums are examined in-depth, and facts are uncovered with the turn of every page. Journalist Brian Coleman has, over the past decade, immersed himself in and written about the hip-hop art form as a columnist for national magazines like XXL, Scratch, CMJ and URB. In this volume, The ’80s, he digs deep, one-on one, with legendary artists like Rakim, De La Soul, Ice-T, Public Enemy, KRS-One, Run-DMC, Slick Rick, Too $hort and many more. “Rakim Told Me” lets you dive head first into the world of your favorite hip-hop artists and the classic albums they produced. These are pure wax facts straight from the original artists, broughtto the surface again after years of invisibility. So dig out your turntable, clean off your Zulu Nation medallion, crack open a chapter, and relive hip-hop’s most creative and captivating era.

Order the book now via Fat Beats.

DOOM (formerly MF DOOM), will be the guest curator for the 48th chapter of the Frank Book. According to Frank, Doom has “crafted a book as unique and compelling as his music, while calling on a cast of collaborators far outside the normal frame of reference for a hip-hop artist.” The book is set to arrive the first week of June, and will sell out fast. Make sure you are a subscriber of the Frank Book to assure yourself a copy.

Italian artist Stefano Pane Monfeli has recently linked up with street wear brand Stussy, Slam Jam, Damiano publishing and VICE to produce a line of tee shirts to celebrate his first monogram, People Think I’m Cool: The Art and Life of Pane.

The book documents in a “work of self-analysis, the symbiosis between the art and life of Pane, with autobiographical stories, images of his work: drawings, paintings and photographic memories in a story of journeys and the inner struggle of the artist, where one opposes urban society and nature. (Stussy)

You can check a preview of the book and tee shirts below, and purchases can be made directly at Stussy.com

The paperback edition of Jay Z’s ‘Decoded’ hits stores on November 1st, and in the excerpt below, the Brooklyn native explains the process of which songs he chooses to decipher. You. Must. Learn.

Let me go back to the beginning: I sat in my studio one night at the start of the process of writing this book, trying to decide which songs to include. Throughout the night, different people came through the studio, including some of the people I’ve worked with closest throughout my career—my engineer, Young Guru; Memphis Bleek; Pharrell; Steve Stoute; dream hampton; and others. I was taking a break from finishing up the Blueprint 3 album, and hung out there for hours while people came and went, playing songs and telling stories, some of which made it into this book. Memphis Bleek told his side of the story of how we worked together on “Coming of Age,” Young Guru remembered that moving moment when Scarface rewrote his verses for “This Can’t Be Life,” Steve told us about how young corporate guys he knew were psyching themselves up for business meetings by listening to “Public Service Announcement” (and dream remembered the Dave Chappelle “When ‘Keeping It Real’ Goes Wrong” bit where a character did the same thing and got fired).

I loved talking about the stories behind the songs, but as we were listening to the songs that night I found myself drawn over and over again to the words—the metaphors and rhythms and structural choices, not the gossip behind the songs. It was the little things that got me nodding my head, lost in the songs like I was hearing them for the first time. For instance, at one point Guru cued up “What We Do,” a song by Freeway with me and Beanie Sigel on it, and set it rumbling through the studio. In an instant, I was lost in Freeway’s remarkable flow. Do yourself a favor and listen to the first verse of that song, where Free ends every bar with some variation of the word “up” or “down.” It’s a simple thing, but the flow it creates is mesmerizing. I was still in the studio, but I was gone. That, I thought, is what an MC in the zone can do—turn language as simple as “up” and “down” into a magic spell.

Salute to Rap Radar

Due to the success of the 2009 Hip-Hop book, ‘How to Rap: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC,’ publisher Chicago Review Press will be delivering a sequel, entitled ‘How 2 Rap: Advance Flow and Delivery Techniques.’ The sequel will pick up where the original book left off, and delve more into the art of flow, rhythm, and delivery. Interviews from some of your favorite rappers, emcees and poets will also be featured throughout the book. No set date has been announced as of yet.

For updates and info on the new book, please visit: www.howtorapbook.com

Wendy Day is a twenty year veteran who has shopped, found and negotiated record deals for artist’s such as Eminem, Cash Money, No Limit, Twista, David Banner, Young Buck, Ras Kass, TMI Boyz, Cormega, and Slick Rick. She recently released the book The Knowledge To Succeed, which details the changes in today’s music industry and gives advice on propelling an artist’s music career forward. This is a MUST HAVE for anyone looking to seek more knowledge on the ins and outs of today’s music industry. For more info see www.TheKnowledgeToSucceed.com

Purchase: Wendy Day – The Knowledge To Succeed