Blockhead grew up in downtown New York City. The son of an artist, surrounded by visual culture, early on he found his passion was for music, for the sonic. A fan of a whole range of sounds, especially hip-hop, Blockhead steadily built a tremendous collection of tapes and later CDs from innumerable artists, a quiet accumulation of knowledge and knowhow.
After a brief stint as a rapper, though, he realized his calling was behind the boards and not on the mic, and from there he began to produce beats. Since making that decision, he's been kept pretty busy, one of those quality underground beatmakers that people call when they want something a little bit special.
Blockhead produced nine tracks on Aesop Rock's critically acclaimed album Labor Days. Additionally he produced half the tracks on Aesop's follow up EP, Daylight. He has also worked with other indie giants such as Slug of Atmosphere, Murs, Mike Ladd and SA Smash. In between, he found time to complete a break beat album entitled Blockhead's Broke Beats, with ten hard-hitting instrumental tracks, which was released on Mush Records, the US home of cLOUDDEAD. And just to prove that he ain't about art-rap, Blockhead produced two tracks on the newly crowned Skribble Jam Battle Champ, MacLethal's full-length album.
An idea of the esteem he is held in Stateside can be gleaned from the fact that he has also contributed three tracks (including the first single) for Cage’s new album on Def Jux. The other producers on the project are DJ Shadow, El-P and RJD2.
After a brief stint as a rapper, though, he realized his calling was behind the boards and not on the mic, and from there he began to produce beats. Since making that decision, he's been kept pretty busy, one of those quality underground beatmakers that people call when they want something a little bit special.
Blockhead produced nine tracks on Aesop Rock's critically acclaimed album Labor Days. Additionally he produced half the tracks on Aesop's follow up EP, Daylight. He has also worked with other indie giants such as Slug of Atmosphere, Murs, Mike Ladd and SA Smash. In between, he found time to complete a break beat album entitled Blockhead's Broke Beats, with ten hard-hitting instrumental tracks, which was released on Mush Records, the US home of cLOUDDEAD. And just to prove that he ain't about art-rap, Blockhead produced two tracks on the newly crowned Skribble Jam Battle Champ, MacLethal's full-length album.
An idea of the esteem he is held in Stateside can be gleaned from the fact that he has also contributed three tracks (including the first single) for Cage’s new album on Def Jux. The other producers on the project are DJ Shadow, El-P and RJD2.
