The Infesticons

Mike Ladd, an impresario of underground rap, has issued multiple albums of raw, subterranean hip-hop both under his own name and via the Infesticons guise. As a youth enamored with funk, he drummed in a punk outfit while residing in the New York area throughout the early 1980s before immersing himself in hip-hop by 1985. Following an extended period of freestyle rhyme sessions—more aligned with urban poetry than conventional rap—alongside production work, he issued his debut solo effort, Easy Listening 4 Armageddon, in 1997 via Scratchie/Mercury. The “Blah Blah” single arrived the following year on Big Dada, after which his sophomore LP Welcome to the Afterfuture surfaced in 2000 on the Like Madd Music imprint he founded. That same year he placed his fresh Infesticons alias with Big Dada/Ninja Tune, resulting in the Gun Hill Road release, and he also contributed a single to the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal label as part of its Blow Up Factor series. In 2003 he resurfaced under the Majesticons moniker with the Beauty Party album.