As another run of The Deli Austin’s Artist of the Month poll wraps up, we’re lookin’ at the only artist in the competition that we haven’t yet featured on The Deli- the versatile producer Dr Bobby Banner MPC. For those who aren’t electronic music producers (which, in Austin, is fewer people than you’d think), the MPC in Dr Bobby’s name refers to the Akai Music Production Center, a series of powerful and powerfully badass beat-making machines. Presumably, Dr Bobby Banner MPC makes the slick, dynamic hip-hop tracks he’s known for on such machines, and if you go from the artist’s social media pages, Dr Bobby might just actually be an MPC. Or at least, that might be his character, but who knows? In the days of hologram Japanese superstars and with music production tech where it’s at these days, the idea of a beat machine that makes its own music isn’t all that far fetched.
Regardless of who, or what, is making Dr Bobby Banner’s music, the recent output from this man/machine has been downright stellar. Particularly, Dr Bobby’s new album Musicology, released at the end of March, is a chance to hear one of Austin’s brightest beatmakers paired up with an absolute army of quality rappers. Lots of times we see purely instrumental albums come out of the beatmaking scene in Austin, so (as much as we dig those instrumental joints) it’s a welcome change-up to get a 12 tracker packed full of both beat and rhyme. That nod toward the traditional hip-hop song structure is about the only place this album is predictable though, as Musicology has Banner et al. letting their creativity and personal spins on hip-hop running free. For an example of the acrobatic musical forces at work here, take track "David Ruffin" below, whose herky-jerky sample-based beat serves as a playground for spitters Scuare and No1Important to let their words jump up and around and play all over. The rest of the album is equally good, and all available what for your listening pleasure over here. If this shit gets ya noddin’ like it does us, give the rest a listen, and vote to the right to make Dr Bobby Banner MPC our first human/machine hybrid Artist of the Month.