Ras G

Ras G emerged as a central presence in Los Angeles’s experimental underground, co-founding Poo-Bah Records and joining the Brainfeeder circle. His production style occupied the same hazy, hallucinatory lane of instrumental hip-hop occupied by fellow L.A. figures Madlib and Flying Lotus.

Between the mid- and late-2000s he issued six EPs, assorted mixes, and four albums—Beats of Mind, Ghetto Sci-Fi, I of the Cosmos, and Brotha from Anotha Planet. He figured prominently in the 2010 Stones Throw documentary Secondhand Sureshots, in which he, Daedelus, J-Rocc, and Nobody were tasked with purchasing thrift-store records for five dollars each and constructing beats from the haul. The resulting work underscored his resourcefulness under limitations, including the use of warped pressings inside a toolshed-turned-studio.

That ingenuity remained evident throughout the following decade. Leaving Records, an affiliate of Stones Throw, became his primary outlet beginning with the 2010 cassette El-Aylien, Pt. 1. Split releases with Samiyam and Sun Ra appeared on All City Records; Ramp Recordings issued Down 2 Earth; Poo-Bah Records released the double 10-inch Space Base Is the Place. Brainfeeder put out the full-length Back on the Planet in 2012.

Leaving Records continued to document his activity with successive volumes of Raw Fruit beat tapes from 2013 onward, later gathered into double-LP compilations, along with Down 2 Earth, Vol. 2, joint projects alongside VHVL and the Koreatown Oddity, and The El-Aylien Tapes, Pts. I & II.

Three albums arrived in 2016: Azla Sounds, Vol. 1 on Azla Vegan, The Gospel of the God Spell on Street Corner Music, and Baker’s Dozen on Fat Beats. The EP Alternate Destiny followed on 101 Apparel in 2017. My Kinda Blues, first issued as a cassette on Ghetto Sci-Fi Music that year, received an LP edition in 2018; Stargate Music, one of several releases credited to Ras G & the Afrikan Space Program, also surfaced that year. Ras G died on July 29, 2019, at the age of 39.