One of the premier crate-diggers in hip-hop, Madlib stitches his uniquely off-kilter grooves from scratchy funk singles, dusty jazz albums and other vinyl-era obscurities. And he never skimps on that outlandish creativity when tapped to craft beats for others. He's laced Ghostface Killah with roaring guitar fuzz, shattered old soul drums to match the elastic flow of Freddie Gibbs, delivered a surprisingly grimy banger for De La Soul and draped one of Erykah Badu's most adventurous bops in unearthly ambiance.