Born in 1975, El-P (aka El Producto, or even Jaime Meline) is a rapper and co-founder/CEO of the Def Jux label.

Expelled from a variety of schools in his youth, Meline developed a love for jazz music via his father, Harry Keys, a jazz pianist. He formed the hip-hop group Company Flow in 1992 following a chance encounter with Mr Len. Highly acclaimed, Company Flow split in 2001 following much praise for their 1997 LP Funcrusher Plus.

El-P's debut solo album, Fantastic Damage, was released in 2002. A follow-up proper, I'll Sleep When You're Dead, emerged in 2007.

From Wikipedia:

As a rapper, El-P's style can be characterized by his dense, aggressive, and verbose attacks, which include notable use of metaphor, science fiction and fantasy themes and references, and associative word play. Regardless of this sophistication, he does not eschew traditional hip hop subject matter, a description which would fit equally well with several of his colleagues. His impact as a producer owes to his innovative mix of bleak futurism and low fidelity sounds. This sound is influenced by Public Enemy's production team, The Bomb Squad. El-P is a great fan of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, and many of Dick's themes—paranoia, the nature of reality—feature in El-P's work.

El-P's MySpace page is HERE.

Releases

• Overly Dramatic Truth - single, out 02/07/2007 on Def Jux. (post review)
• I'll Sleep When You're Dead - album, out 20/03/2007 on Def Jux. 1 review (read/post)
• Flyentology - single, out 26/02/2007 on Definitive Jux. 1 review (read/post)

Past events

• Fri 05 Oct at Glasgow King Tut's Wah Wah Hut. 1 review (read/post)
• Thu 04 Oct at London King's Cross Scala. (post review)
• Wed 03 Oct at Brighton Digital. (post review)
• Tue 02 Oct at Manchester Roadhouse. (post review)
• Mon 01 Oct at Leeds The Faversham. (post review)
• Sat 29 Sep at Dublin Temple Bar Music Centre. (post review)
• Wed 18 Apr at London Camden Lock 17/Dingwalls. 1 review (read/post)

News

• 28/08/2007: Five knuckle-whiteners: full DiS-supported El-P dates confirmed
• 17/08/2007: El-P announces DiS-sponsored UK dates
• 05/06/2007: America on new El-P video: "Camp X-Ray? No way!"
• 23/02/2007: DiS in digest: our pick of the week's news
• 19/02/2007: El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead: full tracklisting
• 13/06/2006: Mars Volta and Trent Reznor to appear on El-P album

Features

• 23/12/2007: DiS's features of 2007
• 28/09/2007: El-P: the overly dramatic truth
• 18/07/2007: DiS @ Coachella: RATM, Arcade Fire, Björk and... Crowded House?!
• 06/06/2007: The Weekly DiScussion: our albums of the year, so far
• 23/04/2007: El-P: "When I run out of my magic pills, I’ll lose my sh*t"
• 03/04/2007: A Month In Records: March 2007

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