Black Milk

Hip-hop artist Black Milk, raised in Detroit, earns acclaim both for incisive, socially aware rhymes and for boundary-pushing beats that weave together soul, electro-funk, and psych-rock threads. He first gained notice supplying tracks for Motor City stalwarts Slum Village, after which his initial solo projects, beginning with the sample-heavy Popular Demand in 2007, drew respectful nods to the late J Dilla. Expanding his palette, he folded live players into the mix, saluting the city’s electronic-music legacy on Tronic in 2008 and No Poison No Paradise in 2013 while shaping an ambitious gospel-psych-rock hybrid for Album of the Year in 2010. Separate instrumental sets include Synth or Soul from 2013 and the 2016 jazz-funk statement The Rebellion Sessions, cut with his road ensemble Nat Turner. Additional full-lengths pair him with Sean Price and Guilty Simpson under the Random Axe banner, with Danny Brown, and with Slum Village’s Young RJ as B.R. Gunna, while further guest spots and co-writing appear alongside Pharoahe Monch, Royce da 5'9", Georgia Anne Muldrow, Quelle Chris, and others.

Curtis Cross grew up in Detroit absorbing the cadences of A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul and soon discovered an aptitude for crafting hip-hop rhythms. He logged countless basement hours progressing from a basic drum machine and karaoke rig to advanced MPCs and samplers, eventually circulating a demo that reached Slum Village. Impressed, the group enlisted him for a cut on their 2002 mixtape Dirty District and later on the proper album Trinity (Past, Present and Future). Adopting the Black Milk moniker, Cross joined forces with RJ Rice, Jr.—known as Young RJ—to form B.R. Gunna, releasing Dirty District, Vol. 2 in 2004; that same year the duo handled eleven of thirteen beats on Slum Village’s Detroit Deli when Waajeed and Kareem Riggins were unavailable.

Operating without a label and with B.R. Gunna on pause, Black Milk issued the mixtape-styled Sound of the City on his own Music House Records in 2005, then contributed to Slum Village’s self-titled follow-up. Fat Beats, drawn to the material frequently likened to J Dilla and Madlib, signed him in 2006 and delivered the official debut Popular Demand in March 2007. A Bishop Lamont collaboration mixed by DJ Warrior surfaced late that year; Music House mastered and commercially released a revised edition early in 2008, while The Set Up with fellow Detroiter Fat Ray arrived a few months afterward. October brought Tronic, his second proper solo album steeped in Detroit techno aesthetics.

For 2010’s Album of the Year he employed a four-piece live band on a rock-leaning project featuring Royce da 5'9" and eLZhi. In 2011 he joined New Yorker Sean Price and Detroit’s Guilty Simpson for the Random Axe self-titled LP and linked with another hometown artist, Danny Brown, on Black and Brown! A trip to Jack White’s Third Man facility in Nashville yielded the 7-inch Brain and the concert document Third Man Live 04-08-2011. Synth or Soul, the inaugural release on his Computer Ugly imprint, preceded the 2013 album No Poison No Paradise, which welcomed Black Thought, Robert Glasper, and Dwele. If There’s a Hell Below arrived in 2014 with appearances from Bun B and Pete Rock. Two years later came the fully instrumental The Rebellion Sessions, recorded with his group now named Nat Turner after the historic rebel leader. The reflective Fever surfaced in 2018 backed by drummers Chris Dave and Daru Jones, followed in 2019 by the expansive EP DiVE spotlighting BJ the Chicago Kid and Phil Swish.