Lee Bannon

Left-field hip-hop producer Lee Bannon (born Fred Warmsley in 1987) hit his stride in the late 2000s/early 2010s as he began working with some of the biggest names in underground rap, including Curren$y, Del the Funkee Homosapien, Talib Kweli, and Inspectah Deck. In addition to producing albums, he made his own instrumental albums of atmospheric beats. The first solo project by the Sacramento-based beatsmith found him using only Marvin Gaye samples for the Me and Marvin EP. In addition to releasing a few mixtapes, Bannon crafted two instrumental albums, 2009's The Big Toy Box and 2011's The Big Toy Box, Vol. 2. He also compiled a retrospective of songs that he'd produced between 2009 and 2011 called Compilation of Bannon for Dummies. On New Year's Eve 2011, following a screening of Drive, he was inspired to create a soundtrack for an imaginary movie, titled Gnarlon Bando's Midnight Noir, which became a hip commodity on Bandcamp. The expansive Fantastic Plastic, released in February 2012 on Los Angeles' Plug Research label, featured guest spots from Del and Chuck Inglish, among others. The producer's 2013 activities included a handful of free download projects, several contributions to Joey Bada$$'s Summer Knights, and the raw drum'n'bass track "NW/WB," all of which led up to December's Alternate/Endings, an adventurous album for Ninja Tune. Main/Flex followed on the Babygrande label in 2014, this time featuring Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante on a raw drum'n'bass track along with Hak from the Ratking collective.