DJ Quik
David Blake is regarded within rap production as one of the most musically sophisticated people the genre has produced, and outside it as a Compton rapper with a handful of hits. The gap between those two assessments is enormous.
Early life and origins in Compton
He grew up in Compton, California, taught himself to play from an early age, and was making tapes on home equipment as a teenager. His first mixtape sold well enough locally to attract a Profile Records deal without any industry intermediary.
Album discography
Quik Is the Name (1991), Way 2 Fonky (1992), Safe + Sound (1995), Rhythm-al-ism (1998), Balance & Options (2000), Under tha Influence (2002), Trauma (2005), The Book of David (2011) and The Midnight Life (2014). Rhythm-al-ism is the one usually named as his best.
Production for other artists
He produced for 2Pac, including work on All Eyez on Me, and for Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Whitney Houston, Ludacris, Erykah Badu and Janet Jackson. His mixing and mastering credits extend further still — a great many West Coast records that do not carry his production credit were finished by him.
What he is known for musically
Live playing and arrangement. He plays multiple instruments, writes actual chord progressions rather than loops, and his records have a warmth and harmonic movement that most sample-based production does not. He is also an accomplished mixing engineer, which is why other producers hire him to finish their work.
The Tree Top Piru feud
His long conflict with fellow Compton rapper MC Eiht ran through records on both sides across the 1990s and is one of the more durable rap feuds of the era, rooted in genuine neighbourhood affiliation rather than promotion.
Standing
Among producers he is a reference point; among general audiences he is underknown. Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre and Nas have all publicly named him as formative, and his catalogue rewards listening in a way that his chart record does not predict.
Quik Is the Name
The 1991 debut went platinum and was made almost entirely by him — writing, producing, playing and mixing. That level of self-sufficiency was rare in rap then and is rare now, and it established the working method he has kept for thirty years.
Rhythm-al-ism
The 1998 album is the one producers point to. It is built on live playing, extended arrangements and harmonic movement that sounds closer to 1970s funk records than to anything else in rap that year. It sold modestly and its reputation has grown steadily ever since.
Mixing and mastering
He is hired as an engineer by other producers, which is unusual for a rapper of any profile. His ear for low end in particular is cited constantly, and a substantial number of West Coast records he has no writing credit on were finished in his room.
Later work and reputation
The Book of David (2011) and The Midnight Life (2014) were both well received, and he has collaborated with Kendrick Lamar, Problem and others of the current Los Angeles generation. Within the profession his standing is close to unmatched; outside it he remains the most underknown major figure in West Coast rap.