Lee Bannon

Born in 1987 as Fred Warmsley, left-field hip-hop producer Lee Bannon reached his peak productivity from the close of the 2000s into the start of the 2010s by supplying beats for prominent underground rappers such as Curren$y, Del the Funkee Homosapien, Talib Kweli, and Inspectah Deck. In parallel he issued his own atmospheric instrumental albums. The Sacramento-based beatsmith’s debut solo release, the Me and Marvin EP, relied entirely on Marvin Gaye samples. Alongside a series of mixtapes he completed two instrumental full-lengths, 2009’s The Big Toy Box and 2011’s The Big Toy Box, Vol. 2, then assembled the 2009–2011 productions into the retrospective Compilation of Bannon for Dummies. After watching Drive on New Year’s Eve 2011 he conceived an imaginary-film soundtrack, Gnarlon Bando’s Midnight Noir, which quickly became a sought-after Bandcamp item. February 2012 saw the release of the expansive Fantastic Plastic on Los Angeles’ Plug Research label, featuring guest appearances by Del and Chuck Inglish. Throughout 2013 he dropped several free-download projects, contributed tracks to Joey Bada$$’s Summer Knights, and recorded the raw drum’n’bass cut “NW/WB,” all of which preceded December’s adventurous album Alternate/Endings for Ninja Tune. The Babygrande label issued Main/Flex in 2014, again spotlighting a raw drum’n’bass track that paired Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante with MC Hak of the Ratking collective. Bannon rejoined Ninja Tune in 2015 for Pattern of Excel, an album that turned toward ambient and drone music.