Flying Lotus Breaks Down 8 Perfectly Produced Records
The Los Angeles-bred producer and founder of Brainfeeder Records dissects tracks by faves including Marvin Gaye, Queen, J Dilla, Madlib, and more.
The Producers is an interview series where our favorite artists discuss their favorite music production.
Flying Lotus has spent the last 20 years taking everything we know about beatmaking and shooting it, unshielded, into outer space. From early works like his 2006 debut album, 1983, which got an anniversary reissue last month, to more recent projects like his latest EP, Big Mama, or the score for his 2025 movie Ash, his blends of rap, ambient, electronic, and jazz feel sourced both from his native California and some galaxy on the other side of the Crab Nebula where Ren & Stimpy and old Madlib music videos are the only things on TV. As a producer, DJ, filmmaker, and head of indie label Brainfeeder, which helped put artists like Thundercat and Kamasi Washington on the map, FlyLo is constantly moving forward, searching for music's next evolution.
He admits that search can get more difficult as time goes on. When we link a Japanese restaurant in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, with the 1983 reissue in mind, the 42-year-old is particularly reflective between bites of edamame and sips of sake. “The beauty of those times was just the curiosity behind it and the unknown,” he explains, thinking back to the start of his career. “There was something about the music I was making—I won’t say it was uncharted territory, but there was so much to explore. It wasn’t a whole scene then like it is now; it felt like we had so much potential to the way we were turning beats away from just the rappers and crafting a producer world. I was curious to see how far we could take it. It was also more difficult to do everything, so it forced me to be really creative. Maybe people liked me more when I didn’t know anything.”
Relistening to 1983, which was named for the year he was born, you can hear the hallmarks FlyLo has been tweaking ever since: the incessant crate-digging of Madlib, the lop-sided drums and digital glitz of producers like J Dilla and Daedalus, the jazzy swing he’s predisposed to as the great nephew of jazz pianist Alice Coltrane. While FlyLo’s gone grander over the last couple of decades, the sophistication and range of his music is as evident on 1983 standouts “Bad Actors” or “Pet Monster Shotglass” as it is on anything from the cosmic funk of You’re Dead! or the lush futuristic Afro-Japanese fusion of his score for the anime Yasuke. His signature eclecticism as a producer made me want to quiz him about the records that inspired his sound most.
Several of FlyLo’s picks for The Producers revolve around the funk and groove of his homebase of California, alongside some Detroit hip-hop, funk from Motown, and even a bit of classic rock from the UK. He’s a worldly otaku with a pristine ear that’s always open, still.
Gain access to this post—and everything else we do at Hearing Things, including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it!
