The story of Hieroglyphics Imperium, West Coast hip-hop history, and the Oakland music scene
Before Deltron 3030. Before Both Sides of the Brain. Before the Gorillaz collaboration that introduced Del to a generation of listeners who had never heard of Hieroglyphics. There was I Wish My Brother George Was Here, Del's debut album released in 1991 on Elektra Records, and it announced one of rap's most distinctive voices.…
Tajai Massey is the most publicly vocal member of Souls of Mischief — the one who does interviews, engages with fans on social media, and articulates the philosophical framework behind the collective's three-decade commitment to independent hip-hop. His MCing reflects the same qualities: dense, analytical, built on an intellectual foundation that rewards close listening.…
A-Plus (Adam Carter) occupies a unique position in Hieroglyphics history: he is simultaneously one of four MCs in Souls of Mischief and the primary producer behind the group's foundational sound. On '93 'til Infinity, he built the beats and rapped over them — a dual role that required him to think about production and…
The years 2000 to 2003 were arguably the most creatively fertile and institutionally significant period in Hieroglyphics history. Del released Deltron 3030 and Both Sides of the Brain. The collective dropped Full Circle. Individual members were releasing solo albums and collaborative projects at a pace that demonstrated the full scope of what they'd built.…
Hip-hop's relationship with jazz is one of the genre's defining artistic threads. From the early breakbeats that sampled jazz-funk records to the explicit jazz-rap of the early 1990s, through the Hieroglyphics collective's deeply jazz-influenced production aesthetic, the two genres have been in conversation since hip-hop's origins. Hieroglyphics brought something specific to that conversation —…
Hieroglyphics did not emerge from a vacuum. The Oakland, California hip-hop scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s was a specific cultural environment — shaped by the city's political history, its economic conditions, and its relationship to both the Bay Area's jazz and funk traditions and the national hip-hop conversation happening primarily in…
'93 'til Infinity is 32 years old and it sounds like it was made yesterday. The production — primarily handled by A-Plus with additional contributions from other Souls members and the broader Hiero collective — built something that has outlasted most of its contemporaries. Here's how the album came together. The Producers A-Plus (Adam…
In the early 1990s, while Death Row was defining one version of West Coast hip-hop — hard, gangster, commercially dominant — two other crews were building something different. Hieroglyphics in Oakland and The Pharcyde in Los Angeles represented the underground alternative: technically complex, jazz-influenced, intellectually curious. Here's how they compared and why both matter.…
Del tha Funkee Homosapien and Ice Cube are first cousins. Both grew up in Los Angeles. Both are West Coast hip-hop legends. But their paths diverged in ways that illuminate the full range of what West Coast rap could be in the early 1990s — and the choice Del made when he left Los…
The Hieroglyphics eye logo is one of hip-hop's most distinctive visual symbols. The single eye — rendered in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic tradition, stylized for late-twentieth-century Oakland — appears on album covers, merchandise, stage backdrops, and tattooed on the arms of fans who have carried the Hiero ethos with them for decades. Here's what…