Pop & Hiss

The L.A. Times music blog

Category: Dibiase

Man versus machine: Dibiase premieres first single from 'Machines Hate Me'

Dibiasecover "Machines Hate Me" marks Dibiase's official debut, but the Watts-bred beatmaker has been warring with samplers since the days of Judge Dredd. With his sensibilities honed at Project Blowed and countless hours hunched over an old-school 8-bit Nintendo, he's been an unmistakable fixture on the local beat scene since his emergence at after-hour battles at Kutmah's Sketchbook night, boom box perched on his shoulder like a left coast version of Radio Raheem.

But Public Enemy wasn't the soundtrack blaring. Instead, Dibiase devised his own dynamite comprised of J Dilla-descended moonlit soul, G-funk's south L.A. swing, and the dusty cartridge and epileptic flashes of 8-bit Nintendo music. From RC Pro-Am to Castlevania, there is no beat that Dibiase has been unable to funkdafy. And on his forthcoming Alpha Pup release, he flips both Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! and "The Price Is Right" theme songs, adding a gritty, forceful groove and toying with the pace like a rope-a-dope.

With the Low End Theory's emergence, Dibiase has seen his profile rise of late, both from his frequent and  ferocious live sets and his outside production work with U-N-I and Intuition. The former's Dibiase-produced "Beautiful Day" became something of an underground hit in 2008, earning MTV airplay and hundreds of thousands of MySpace plays. And both won mix show play on Power 106.

Continue reading »



Advertisement





Categories


Archives
 



From screen to stage, music to art.
See a sample | Sign up

Get Alerts on Your Mobile Phone

Sign me up for the following lists: