Embedded Music: the brilliance hidden beneath the surface of New York

Two 45-minute sets are Embedded: mixtapes shaped by a raw, complex understanding of this music, and driven by pure passion.

This is where our latest chapter in StrettoBlaster’s Hip Hop Labels Project starts.

Welcome to Embedded Music, founded by DJ Ese e DJ Hipsta at the turn of the Millennium: a product and mirror image of New York City’s rugged underground scene.

In the beginning, there were mixtapes: enter Embedded Studios

Brooklyn-based Ese and Hipsta were making their names when mixtapes—alongside local and college radio—were still among the main ways to navigate the vast, almost overwhelming amount of underground hip hop released during the late ’90s and early ’00s.

The aesthetic was explicit: pieces used as logos and graphics, street imagery, gritty rhymes and even grittier beats, all packed into tapes loaded with some of the illest shit around. The kind you played in your Walkman—or, even better, in your car.

At the time, everybody and their cousin was trying to start a label. Unsurprisingly, Ese and Hipsta decided to take their shot too.

In 2001, they founded Embedded Studios, later renamed Embedded Music.

Within a year, they had released several 12″ records featuring underground heavyweights such as LoDeck, Vast Aire, Aesop Rock, West Coast representative Zion I, Breez Evahflowin’, L.I.F.E. Long e Hangar 18, alongside remixes by RJD2.
Starting to see a pattern here?

Their mixtapes were strictly underground, so collaborations with this kind of emcee were hardly surprising. Some of those relationships were born directly through the mixes.

Others were undoubtedly forged through Ese’s work with El-P’s brainchild, Definitive Jux. He joined the label as A&R in 2001 and later became its General Manager, remaining there until the end of the Def Jux experience in 2009.

The two DJs and producers’ first major statement was a compilation built around those connections. Driven by murky samples and aggressive drums, The Bedford Files brought together some of the indie scene’s Wunderkinder: a snapshot of everything compelling in hip hop beyond the bling.

Was Embedded simply an offshoot of Definitive Jux? Not quite.

Used to digging through the dense woods of the early-2000s underground, Ese and Hipsta began assembling a singular roster of oddballs. In the process, they shaped a sound that was far more peculiar (and original) than a simple Def Jux satellite.

The message is embedded: a trajectory worth remembering

First came Babbletron, comprised of Cool Calm Pete, Jaymanila e DJ Pre, whose album earned considerable international recognition. Soon afterwards, underground heads including Loer Velocity e Bisc 1 entered the label, delivering plenty of good, uncompromising hip hop.

Between 2003 and 2007, Embedded Music steadily carved out its own identity.

Fiercely New York-centred, wildly eccentric, proudly unfashionable and free of unnecessary fanciness, that identity crystallised in Junk Science’s 2005 debut. MC Baje One and producer Snafu created a remarkable album built on inventive lyrics, restrained but sharp production and an art-driven package. For more of their story, peep the feature qui.

Around the same period, Hipsta’s name began disappearing from the label’s releases, while Embedded Music’s output gradually slowed. Nonetheless, Dj Ese still managed to release his only producer album, stacked with key figures from both Embedded Music and Definitive Jux.

Two years later, the label made a strong comeback with the self-titled album by Iller Than Theirs—a.k.a. Krayola e Tone Tank, both members of Nuclear Family alongside Junk Science.

Unfortunately, this comeback arrived just as the economics of underground music were increasingly stuck in a downward spiral.

Operating within microscopic margins (barely enough to pay the bills) had always been difficult for small imprints like Embedded Music. But with music consumption changing rapidly and conditions deteriorating for anything outside the pop mainstream, survival became harder by the minute.

Embedded continued releasing the occasional EP and single before finally ceasing operations in 2009.

But not before one last, brilliantly unexpected twist.

The art of crafting: beats meet beers

In 2007, Ese helped Junk Science release their sophomore album, Gran’Dad’s Nerve Tonic, through Def Jux.

With albums no longer selling as they once had, he suggested to the duo to partner with a brewery and produce a limited beer inspired by the concept album. Since the record itself revolved around a miraculous brew, the connection with actual brews was already there. Better still, the collaboration could help fund their promotional tour.

The craft beer–indie music connection—and the limited-edition logic behind it—was undeniably hipster as hell. But the idea also revealed Ese’s instinct for what was coming.

His experience in independent music allowed him to recognise the natural lifestyle affinity between underground hip-hop and the emerging craft beer scene.

Niche artists could turn their names into sustainable brands while continuing to make music. Niche breweries, meanwhile, gained an authentic entry point into independent music culture.

When Def Jux eventually shut down, Ese—already a beer enthusiast and home brewer—moved into brewing professionally.

Years later, after co-founding Interboro Spirits & Ales in 2016, he struck a deal with Run The Jewels to create the collaborative IPA Stay G-o-l-d. He tells the story himself qui.

With this, we really have reached the end of today’s exploration. Embedded Music may be gone, but it remains worth discussing—and, more importantly, worth hearing.

Carefully selected in the taproom by yours truly, Two Mave the Masked Jedi, and mixed by DJ Pio, wizard brewer of hoppy cuts and scratches, the following mix stays true to the spirit of this project, working like a weathered Polaroid: a snapshot of another great independent label that existed beneath the surface and left a mark far bigger than its footprint.

Peep the tracklist. Turn up the volume. Press play.

Embedded Music Tribute Mixtape

A musical selection by TwoMave, mixed and recorded by DJ Pio.

01 Kamikazee Concepts – Tes
02 F#%#^%$#ck Yooooouuuu – Cool Calm Pete feat. Thirstin Howl III & Lathia Black
03 Pandemonium – Bisc1
04 Spread Luv – Loer Velocity
05 Lost (Blockhead Remix) – Cool Calm Pete
06 Ice Age – Junk Science feat. B. Eazy
07 All the Way Hype – Babbletron
08 Check My Willz – Aceyalone
09 K.A.R.N.I – Dj Ese feat. Karniege
09 5 Skeleton with Headphones (Snafu bonus beat) – Junk Science
10 The Clock Song – Babbletron
11 A Slice of Heaven – Hangar 18
12 The Same – Iller Than Theirs feat. Masta Ace
13 You Know Me – Stelf Index
14 Smorg – Iller Than Theirs
15 Tippin’ Dominoes Remix – Vast Aire
16 Eye Opener – Not For Nothin’ feat. Mr. Complex
17 Song I Sing – Loer Velocity
18 Noah’s Arc Reject – LoDeck

If you like this one, you could try discovering other awesome labels we have paid tribute to.
I’d suggest starting from qui.