Maehlib - jazz hip-hop beats

I get a lot of emails through this blog from a lot of artists trying to get attention for their little piece of the internet. I try and listen to what I can. Very generally speaking, most of it is mediocre at best. Few make the cut onto these hallowed digital pages ;) However, it’s always super-rewarding to find a gem amongst them all. Maehlib, AKA Thomas Kaske, is one of these cases. He sent me a track via SoundCloud and I was immediately intrigued by his atmospheric, downtempo hip-hop beats. Leaning heavily on jazz, Maehlib creates layered, head-nodding soundscapes. He’s quite a mysterious character, with almost no information about him available online. However he was kind enough to provide me the details over email.

Born and raised in East Germany, he moved to Berlin after school. He began DJ-ing at age 14, and then started to make beats 2 or 3 years ago, after being introduced to production by his brother, an electronic music producer. The two collaborate as odd/even. As you may guess from listening to his music, he is inspired by Madlib, hence the similar name.

You will find a collection of his beats available for download via his BandCamp page, and each one comes with different cover art which he also designed. The cinematic nature of his beats may be explained by the fact that he is studying film along with anthropology, so you’ll find a wide variety of samples in his music, from academics like Mcluhan or Niklas Luhmann to African music.

I highly recommend you check him out, and then let me know what you think in the comments.