And that point of no return, Endtroducing…, turns 20 this fall - a spectacular record in itself, but also the standard Shadow’s long since moved past trying to duplicate.

Ten years ago, and ten years after his debut dropped, Shadow’s touring and interviews behind the release of the divisive The Outsider saw him chafing at the restraints in a now-infamous post on his blog: “Repeat Endtroducing over and over again? That was never, ever in the game plan. So I think it’s time for certain fans to decide if they are fans of the album, or the artist.”Īs time’s gone on and Shadow’s had more time to reflect, he’s been able to put his career arc in more sanguine terms - not as an antagonist dashing expectations, but a restless spirit who’s taken in so much music from so many different sources that he can’t help searching for new modes to channel it all through. He’s laid down enough of a runway for a mass underground movement that the world of hip-hop-derived instrumental beat music - one with enough post- Endtroducing shine for J Dilla, the Avalanches, Madlib, and Flying Lotus - benefits as much from his precedent as his presence.

So when he can come back after what feels like an increasingly customary five-or-so-year gap between albums with The Mountain Will Fall, and filter his ideas through everyone from Run The Jewels (“Nobody Speak”) to Nils Frahm (“Bergschrund”), his career feels more like a still-evolving continuum than a stop-start series of experimental transitions.Īs a Bay-rooted phenom who cut his teeth on increasingly far-afield hip-hop in the early ’90s - including name-making collabs with Solesides labelmates like Lyrics Born and Gift Of Gab - Shadow’s transition into trip-hop pioneer, sample-culture icon, and record-digging figurehead left him with a reputation that gave him just enough room to stretch out. And once he segued from the debut statement of Endtroducing to the all-star group effort of UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction and the somewhat more idiosyncratic expansion and refinement of The Private Press, even that room started to feel too confining.

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