In 1996, Kazi met up with Madlib at his Crate Diggas Palace home studio and recorded the Blackmarket Seminar album. Since then, Kazi has gone on to make a name for himself in the underground by destroying ciphers and Madlib has become a legend in hip-hop, working with everyone from MF DOOM to Kanye West.
Now, 20 years later, the two are here with a remastered release via Below Systems Records.
Kazi explained, "We recorded this album in the wee hours at CDP Studios back in ‘96. It was pretty much me, Madlib and Declaime in the lab when this album was recorded.
I learned so much from Lib cadence, rhyme patterns, timing and how to dig for records. What some people don’t know is this cat actually took the time to show me how to make beats. I must say working with Lib was an amazing experience. The “Blackmarket Seminar” is a very raw and dark album. We came up with “Black Market” because at the time we were doing Hip Hop that nobody else was doing and to us you could only get it on the “Black Market”. When you first play the album you’ll hear characters on a skit in search of the “Blackmarket Seminar”. We really tried to make it seem like the characters were outside walking around looking for it."
Stream the album below.
