From navigating a chaotic New York studio internship to collaborating with hip-hop icons, producer Marco Polo explains how his relentless hustle, dedication to analog aesthetics, and recent pivot into original compositions have shaped his journey in hip-hop.

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Sounds Visual: Where does the journey in music start for you?

Marco Polo: I was born in Toronto, Canada. The first MPC 2000XL was purchased in my early 20s in Toronto, and I went to an engineering school for music called the Harris Institute for the Arts. Then, immediately after graduating, I went to New York City to intern at a studio called the Cutting Room, which is quite known for a lot of different artists recording there. And that’s kind of where the journey started.

I went there to intern just to learn. I never wanted to be an engineer; I wanted to make beats. But that put me in a situation to learn and be around people that were doing it, people that I listened to—like all the artists on Rawkus, like Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and, you know, Inspectah Deck was in there. My first session as an intern assistant engineer was with Benzino, who was with The Source, and that was my introduction to the music industry in New York, which is actually insane. It was three months of insanity.

SV: Rewinding for a second—did you grow up in a musical household?

MP: No, I grew up… well, my dad was a DJ in his teens. I didn’t grow up with him DJing in the house, but he loved music, so he was my influence. Just whatever vinyl he had left and whatever he was listening to, ’cause it was all over the place. That was my influence. But it’s not like his musical stuff continued as a kid; he wasn’t playing the drums or DJing.

SV: What was the big catalyst for you to go ahead and start making beats and getting gear?

MP: My introduction to hip-hop and then becoming so into buying albums, learning about the history, and going back and buying everyone’s albums. I got frustrated with just listening to music, and I was like, “I wanna do this.” It was specifically inspired by the beats, the samples, and where these sounds were coming from. I didn’t know that people were taking old sounds from records, and I wanted to do all of that. I wanted to do that. I wanted to be like DJ Premier, the RZA, Pete Rock, and The Beatnuts. When I heard those sounds, I was like, “What is happening?“

SV: Let’s talk about Play De Record in Toronto. You once described your Tuesday ritual of hitting that record store to check the 12-inch wall and buy new vinyl. How did the physical community inside that record store shape the competitive edge of Toronto producers before the internet decentralized the local scene?

MP: I wasn’t even making beats at that point. I was still in fan mode. So when I lived in Toronto and I was going to Play De Record, and then Tracks, which was up the street, I was more just a fan at that point, just thinking about it. So it was just exciting to hear new music. I miss feeling the way I felt back then. I wish I had it now.

The excitement to go in, and then like, have homies like DJ Serious, who I consider one of my early mentors, who’s an amazing DJ and producer from Toronto who worked at Play De Record. So he’d be there and he’d be like, “Listen to this, listen to this.” And then, you know, I’d be running around with some of my Toronto friends who are actual DJs, so they’re buying everything because they’re just playing the records.

But just like… you know, I remember hearing the first Phat Kat 12-inch that Dilla produced. “Don’t Nobody Care About Us” was on one side, and what was the other one? Oh… it was incredible. It was like two Dilla classics. It was the first time I heard Phat Kat, and I put the needle on at Tracks and I was like, “This is insanity.”

SV: The flip side was “Dedication to the Suckers,” I believe?

MP: Yes! Yes, it was. Thank you. Those are the two. Those are the two first songs. It’s just a moment that I remember, hearing those beats on, you know, a Tuesday, because we would go to Play De Record and then we would go up the street to Tracks, and Tracks is where we heard that. I was like, “What the hell is this?” And yeah, man, it makes me so sad because it was such a ritual, a thing to do, and a community. That’s nowhere to be found now. You know, we still do vinyl and all that, and I don’t want to be an old man complaining, but I miss those days. We had to physically get in our cars and drive downtown to a store just to hear a song! The amount of effort [it took] just to hear music. Like now, I’m just in my bed eating a pizza, playing Spotify. It’s insane.

SV: You shared the hilarious, painful story of a disco ball falling off the ceiling and breaking your nose during a Jeru the Damaja concert at The Comfort Zone‘s Illamental Series. Beyond the flying objects, what was it about the raw, sweaty, $10-at-the-door energy of those Wednesday night underground shows that defined the era when “the underground was fun to be a part of”?

MP: It was amazing times. I saw Slum Village there, I saw J-Live, I saw Mountain Brothers, I saw Planet Asia, I saw O.C. As many as I could go to, because they were the greatest. I was in school at the Harris Institute at the time, and yeah, that’s when I was just really falling in love and discovering independent, underground hip-hop. And yeah, it was awesome. It was such an era and a scene, and yeah, once again, I miss it.

I miss connecting. I would never even think about going to a show like that at 46 years old, but back then it was like, “I am in this sweaty, low-ceiling club that smelled like rat shit, and the dude-to-female ratio is like 95 to 5.”

But it was literally because I loved the music so much and I loved these artists. And yeah, that was such a great time. You know, a lot of my friends were responsible for putting on those shows, and we’re still in touch to this day, you know? And yeah, it was a classic time.

SV: One more question just about Canada. So, Canada is well known for kind of having robust cultural grants and CanCon radio mandates. Do you think that those government frameworks impacted your viability and growth as an independent artist? And the second part is,–given the “sink or swim” nature of the US music industry, how do you think a similar kind of grant system would alter the dynamic for American creators?

MP: It’s a good question. I definitely benefited from grants. So I love—I love the support that you can get as a Canadian. Did it like, propel me? No, I’m going to be honest. I feel like Canadian hip-hop had a bad stigma. It’s one of the reasons I moved directly to the United States before I was even established as an artist, because I wanted people to know me for my music and not necessarily where I was from. I felt at a point, like I said, there was a negative connotation towards Canadian hip-hop artists, and I just wanted people to listen to my beats and have no idea, and judge me on the music.

So the grants that I did get later were obviously very helpful in many things, but I don’t think that they had anything to do with my success in terms of like helping me… you know, I got a publicist because of a grant, and did it help me? I don’t think so. It just helped me get shit done. And, you know, I was nominated for two Juno Awards, which is obviously an honor, but my own hustle—my own hustle was the reason that I got mine, for sure. That’s no shots at the Canadian hip-hop scene, because we have legends. It was just a certain thing about me just wanting, like I said, to really be judged about my beats alone.

SV: When you moved to New York, it was a time when the city’s industry dominance was starting to shift a little bit, but you were obviously planting your flag firmly in that kind of traditional New York sound. What do you think was the biggest cultural shock or industry hurdle that you faced trying to prove your credentials to veteran New York rappers, coming out of Toronto?

MP: I don’t know. I feel like my journey was—besides busting my ass as an intern—I think I had a pretty good… I don’t feel like I faced anything like that. I always used to think, “Oh, maybe I’m a white boy from Canada, and that’s going to stop people from taking me seriously.” But it didn’t. Most of the OGs that I linked up with, they just were interested in: Were my beats dope? Did the drums smack? And that’s what did most of the talking for me.

[When I came to New York] I was literally Eddie Murphy in Coming to America, smiling, mopping the floor at McDowell’s, like, happy to be there. And I had a lot of things working in my favor. I had a little bit of money saved. I was staying with a friend’s family that weren’t stressing me; I was sleeping in a basement, and yeah, I didn’t have the pressures. But also, that’s because things happened faster than usual. Like, I only interned for three months before they started paying me, and that typically isn’t normal. There are dudes that intern for a year or two years. So, things worked out in the sense that I started getting paid about two and a half to three months into the gig.

SV: I’ve interned at a few recording studios as well, and, man, it can be a pressure cooker. What was the wildest situation you encountered at The Cutting Room?

MP: Benzino threw his phone against the wall, it smashed, and then he looked at me and he said, “I need the contacts in that phone sorted out.” So I’ve seen it all. These are like some of the things that made me a man. I had to pick up the shattered cell phone.

SV: One other thing regarding studio interning and really cutting your teeth: aligning tape heads, syncing two-inch tape machines—obviously a massive pain, and a bit of a bygone era. Do you think that tedious, hands-on physical labor gave you a different appreciation for audio engineering compared to producers who started entirely in the digital realm with platforms like Pro Tools?

MP: I don’t record to tape anymore. I would love one day to go back, when finances are a little bit more disposable. I’ve never actually recorded any of my albums to tape. I cut tape in the Cutting Room for other clients, and I was petrified to do it correctly, but I did it. But I feel like, just in general, the amount of stuff producers before me had to deal with to make music just actually birthed so much more creativity, as opposed to now where I have 7,000 plugins, every drum break, every drum kit, the DAW, time stretching… Like, I actually sit in front of the computer sometimes and I’m like, “I have too much shit,” and I’m like, stuck. I’m like, my growth—my growth is stunted.

I feel like I thrived in a “less is more” environment, and I’m going to be honest, I don’t know necessarily that there’s been progression production-wise, hip-hop-wise, you know, that has changed the genre like the ’90s or even late/early 2000s—like what was happening back then where they had, you know, 12 seconds in an SP-1200. I can have this debate all day. I’m not saying that what we have now is bad; it’s great to have more tools. Like, it doesn’t do anything but… if I’m like, listening to what’s happening now versus then, I seldom hear something now and be like, “Wow.” I think things sounded better to me back then, you know? I’ll take the analog-sounding era over now.

SV: Managing and engineering in a major room, or even interning at a place like The Cutting Room, means dealing with people on their absolute best and worst days. I know you mentioned the story about the phone being thrown, but looking back, what was the most valuable lesson you learned about managing artist egos during those early assistant days?

MP: [The most valuable lesson was] Shut the fuck up. That’s my lesson, usually, most of the time. At the Cutting Room it’s different because it’s a customer-service-based space. So, I’m an assistant engineer, and also later I was like the studio manager at night. So it’s really “the customer is always right,” no matter what insanity they’re saying. You’re dealing with egos, which you already know what that’s like. So, the more you can, you know, make it worded so you’re not attacking them in any way or blaming them, you’re just making them feel comfy and trying to be as accommodating. If you take that into the studio, even when you’re working with artists—they might be struggling on something, and just kind of like, be supportive, encouraging, and you know, I think it’s just patience and also just giving people space.

SV: You emphasized that a producer must stay involved all the way through the mastering process. Since mastering engineers often look at a track from a clinical, sonic-balance perspective, what is the specific “vibe” or low-end grit you always fight to protect when your tracks hit that final stage?

MP: I’ve had the same mastering engineer my entire career for the albums I do when I collaborate with guys like Masta Ace. His name is Ricardo Gutierrez—great guy. Over the years, we’ve developed a system where, besides mastering, he acts as a safety net. I don’t consider myself a great mix engineer. Some people think I’m good at it, but I disagree. I think I’m just good at keeping things raw, simple, and unprocessed.

Our workflow is simple: I’ll bounce down my mix stems when they’re about 86% of the way there and send them to Ricardo. He finishes the job with some slight mixing and then the master. When he sends back a version to listen to, it’s not just a rough mix—he says, “This is exactly what the final master will sound like.” I think that’s amazing because it eliminates the guessing game of what will happen to the track during the final stage.

He tightens up the mix if there are any issues, handles the loudness, and eliminates surprises. If something gets compressed, I know exactly how it will affect the final product.

Ricardo is also really good at leaving my stuff alone. He knows I’m a psychopath—and most of us are so attached to our demo versions—but there’s a lot to be said for the technical, surgical changes he makes. I can’t hear what’s under 30 Hz, so I trust him to clean up the frequencies I’m not listening to, even though I know they’re important. Ultimately, I’m not looking for some specific magic trick; I just want the music to sound as good as possible.

When he sends something back, I’ll reference it against my original mix to see what he improved or what might still need tweaking. That’s really been our process. I’ve never liked the traditional approach of, “Here are the final mixes, now we send them off to mastering.” I’ve been spoiled. Because my mastering guy is also doing a bit of mixing, I always have the flexibility to make adjustments to the final product. It’s easily my preferred way to work.

SV: You’ve mentioned before that you’re one of the few producers who doesn’t DJ, and I wanted to piggyback on that for a second. Does not being a traditional DJ change how you approach arrangement, chops, and drum programming compared to peers who view beatmaking specifically through a DJ’s lens?

MP: I don’t actually know how DJs look at it because I’m not one, but I know exactly what you’re saying. Watching my DJ friends when they talk about making beats, it’s exactly what you described. But because I’m not cutting back and forth on vinyl, I don’t have that framework in my brain. I don’t even know what that feels like.

People call me a DJ all the time because we tour and I run the show on stage, but I’m not in the club. I don’t know how to mix vinyl and really beat-match—and to me, that is what DJing is. Obviously, I get hired to do beat sets and music sets using a MIDI controller, and to most people, that looks like DJing. But when your close friends are DJ Revolution, DJ Premier, Pete Rock, J. Rocc, and Babu, you realize that on no planet could I call myself a DJ.

I’m a music selector. I will play great music for you, but you’re not going to see me doing routines and scratching. I approach it strictly as a producer. I don’t have a deep DJ mentality when I’m making beats, though I’ve learned a few little things along the way—like making an intro two bars so a DJ can cut it up. But a full DJ approach in my production? I’m not sure that happens.

SV: You mentioned DJ Revolution: you praised his chorus cuts on the Large Professor track, arguing that chorus scratches can never get played out. When you are building a beat, how do you decide whether a song needs a vocal hook, a chanted hook, or a meticulously scratched-up hook?

MP: Back then, I was so pro-hip-hop—everything had to have scratches. Everything was a DJ Premier hook, or Shalo, or Revolution. That’s what we always wanted first. Over time, it’s definitely changed to have more of a balance. When we were young, twenty years ago, we were just trying to impress people, and we sometimes lost focus on what sounded most musical and dope in favor of making the ultimate tribute. My first album was basically a massive ode. We just wanted to make something our elders and the people we looked up to would respect. In that process, you sometimes sacrifice musicality just to throw a bunch of crazy scratching at the end. Was it always necessary? I don’t know, but that’s how we did things back then.

The biggest thing I’ve learned from watching Masta Ace is how he constructs songs—how he creates space and decides what should happen, like with written hooks. Back then, if you gave me the choice between a sung hook, a written hook, or scratches, I was always going to pick scratches because that’s what DJ Premier did, and he’s the greatest. But over time, I’ve learned that’s not always what’s appropriate. It’s about what’s right for the song. Lately, we’ve actually been working on some stuff where a DJ did some scratches, and we looked at each other and said, “You know what? That’s a bit too much. We need to dial it back.”

I never would have said that twenty years ago. Back then, it was always, “Scratch, scratch, scratch, DMC Championships!” Now, I realize not everything needs that. Sometimes you just need one simple line, and sometimes you need a fucking bunch of lines! And sometimes you need a scratch solo. You just learn over time when each of those things is required. That’s where a true producer comes in, and it takes time to develop that. It’s like Quincy Jones saying, “Okay, I need this horn player to come in and do this, and I know this key…” It’s about knowing how to put everything together to cook the perfect meal.

SV: You mentioned that you don’t mind the “Boom Bap” or “throwback” label as long as it’s positive, but you emphasize that your music is “classic hip-hop with a current sound.” As the landscape of East Coast hip-hop continues to evolve away from its traditional roots, where do you find fresh creative inspiration today?

MP: Oh, man. It’s a great question, my friend. To be honest, I was feeling pretty uninspired just last month. There are certain artists whose projects I’ll always tap into, but currently, my inspiration is much more producer-driven. I’m much quicker to follow who a producer is working with than a rapper per se.

So, I’m really just following my peers. I’m locked into what The Alchemist is doing—I consider him to be the guy right now.’m always tapped into his work. Then there are guys like J-Kwon, who is deeply rooted in the underground but is also making records with major artists. He comes straight out of crate-digging culture and is an avid record collector. I’ve always found myself following producers more than rappers; that’s where I get my inspiration—the beats.

More recently, though, I’ve been getting a lot of inspiration from older music because I started composing my own samples. In fact, my last project wasn’t even a rap album; it was a musical composition album I created during the time Nas and DJ Premier were working on their record. I had started making compositions for Premier to use on that project, and I ended up creating so much material that I turned it into its own full-length album and released it as The Many Moods of Marco Polo.

SV: That was my next question, actually: you’ve recently been experimenting with composition-based beats that feature no external samples. What prompted this pivot in your production style? 

MP: I’m definitely more inspired by composing right now than making traditional rap beats; that’s really been the journey I’ve been on for the last year. Having Primo sample me four times completely legitimized what I was doing and proved it was the real deal. Now, I’m full-force in that world.

That’s where my deepest inspiration is coming from—creating these pieces of music on tape, tracking them live, and putting them out there for other producers to use and sample. That’s where the energy is right now, if I’m being honest. I still love making my own beats, but this is incredibly exciting because it feels like a whole new world with fewer limitations. So lately, I’ve just been buying crazy synths, composing, and collaborating with my musician friends who play keys. It’s been a hell of a ride.

SV: You’ve also stated previously that the moment a producer thinks they’ve learned everything, their career is over, and that you continue to study the history of all music—which I think is incredibly important.

MP: It sounds a little harsh when it’s put like that, but honestly, I stand by the core of it. The moment you think you’ve figured it all out, you completely limit your growth. There is always room to grow. For me, the desire to keep learning is always there—watching and learning from people who can do things I can’t do. It’s like going to school for the rest of your life. I don’t think there’s a graduation day to music; that’s just how I look at it. Every day I wake up, I’m going to class. Some days I learn something new, and some days I don’t.

SV: It’s so important to keep your ears tuned to genres outside of hip-hop. It allows you to constantly expand your sonic palette instead of getting siloed in your own Spotify playlist bubble.

MP: Absolutely. To add to that, I spent my entire career working very closely with a peer—someone I’m no longer working with—and in that process, I realized I had lost a bit of my own identity. I’m in a zone now where I’m getting back to trusting my own instincts one hundred percent. I’m doing things I normally wouldn’t have done because I’m no longer under the influence of people around me who were limiting my vision. Now, I feel completely free. So many crazy, positive things have happened since making that shift, and I’m incredibly excited about that side of creating right now.

SV: I want to talk a bit about record digging, because that’s a core identity for a major part of our readership. In the documentary Deep Crates 2, you were wearing a surgical mask while digging and mentioned that the dust from those grimy spots will completely fuck you up. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and I completely agree. What is the absolute worst, most hazardous, or strangest location you’ve ever gone digging just to find a rare sample?

MP: I would say digging in the hoods of Medellín, Colombia—going to places where people get shot on the corner. It wasn’t necessarily that the spots were dirty; it was more that the areas were genuinely dangerous. I think that definitely qualifies.

My friend DJ Dmoe—shout out to him—took me to a bunch of spots out there where we were sliding into places no gringo would ever be without local Colombians. All of a sudden, a garage door would slide open and there’d be a pile of records. People were looking at me like, “Why is this random white dude in my hood looking for vinyl?” There was this crazy mix of excitement over finding something rare, but also thinking, I really hope I don’t get robbed right now. To be clear, not all of Medellín is like that. I absolutely love that city, and I have a lot of friends there, but there are definitely heavy neighborhoods. Going into unsavory areas to find records can always be a risk.

SV: Speaking of digging–you once mentioned that one of your first true vinyl splurges was spending fifty or sixty bucks on an ESG album at A-1 Records in New York just to get your loop—a struggle we’ve all been through. As a crate digger, what is the psychological difference for you between sampling a drum break from a digital file versus dropping a needle onto a piece of wax that you know cost you a week’s worth of lunch money when you were a young producer?

MP: I’d love to say that I only sample breaks from vinyl, but it’s just not true. I value owning the original vinyl and sampling from the source, and obviously, that’s always my first choice. But I have one hundred percent sampled WAV files and digital files because I don’t want to spend $400 on a rare, obscure Dutch drum break. For me, how I’m going to make the best song is always more important than the source. That might upset some record nerds, but it is what it is. It’s always about the music first.

SV: And the caveat to all this is that even though you’re shifting your focus toward original compositions right now, sampling culture is just such a massive part of what the audience lives and breathes.

MP: Oh, absolutely. And look, I’m still digging all the time. I went digging just recently with Premier. I took Primo out—shout out to my boy Malit, who picked the record store over in Jersey. We are always digging. That’s never going to stop. It’s the foundation of everything I do, whether I’m making beats or composing live music. That’s the starting point. Hip-hop, to me, has always been about discovering new sounds. Looking for rare records was literally the only way to ensure you sounded different from everyone else.

It’s actually more important than ever right now. You have platforms like Splice—and I’m not shitting on it, I respect any tool that lets people make music legally and creatively—but the problem with it is that I pride myself on sounding unique. I’m not going to chase loops and samples that everyone else has access to. Some people don’t care about that; they just want to make music and they aren’t worried if three other producers used the exact same sound. But when we were coming up, the entire point was to find loops that nobody else had. We wanted our beats to stand out. We always wanted to sound different.

SV: When you’re looking for samples nowadays, do you intentionally dig for music that suffered a similar fate? Are you actively looking for brilliant but obscure records that fell through the cracks, perhaps because they’re a bit safer to sample?

MP: To answer that specifically, a great example is that when I was digging for records to sample back in the day, I actively avoided the soul section. Because guys like 9th Wonder just had that sound completely locked down. My mentality was to go straight to the easy-listening section—the dollar-bin junk records. Not that I was the first person to ever do that, but without incriminating myself, my mindset was: let’s dig through the bullshit.

I actually liked listening through the dollar-bin, easy-listening, elevator-music type of stuff because I felt like everyone else was just going for the low-hanging fruit. So yes, absolutely, when I dig, I’m looking for the things that fell through the cracks. Even now, I try to keep a balance of everything, but I definitely love my dollar-bin vinyl. If you look at the cover of my composition record, it’s a direct nod to that. I am a massive fan of late ’60s and ’70s easy-listening records all day.

SV: Because of sample clearance issues with “Danger,” you had to bring in multi-instrumentalist G Koop to entirely replay the music to mimic the original sample. What is the secret to replay-interpolation where it preserves the gritty texture and “soul” of an old vinyl record without sounding sterile or overly polished?

MP: It can be really difficult sometimes because it completely depends on the sample you’re trying to replay. Some things will just never sound as good as the original vinyl, no matter what you do. Other times, the replay can actually sound better. But really, the very first thing you have to do is change a couple of notes. (laughs)

Because even if you play it tit for tat, you still have to clear it on the publishing and writer side. There are just so many factors involved. But session musicians have come such a long way. Shout out to G Koop, who has done so well for himself—he gave us a bunch of layers and a ton of options to work with on that track.

When I listen to our version compared to the original sample, ours has entirely different elements. It actually transformed into something new. To me, that’s always the best outcome, because you take inspiration from a source and build your own unique piece of art from it. That song, hands down, is my and Torae’s most licensed track ever.

It just continues to thrive. It’s been in movies, video games, and it was just featured in a Marvel project—I think Daredevil? It’s truly the gift that keeps on giving.

SV: You’ve that working with guys like Kool G Rap, Large Professor, and O.C. was a literal dream come true after moving from Toronto to New York in 2002. Once you actually get your heroes into the studio, what was the very first piece of vocal or lyrical critique you gave to an industry legend that made them realize you weren’t just a fan, but a real producer?

MP: For example–Rakim, who is the greatest of all time, delivered something for me, and then I asked him to re-spit it. And he actually did it. Rakim—who is the greatest of all time—delivered a verse for me, and I actually asked him to re-spit it. And he did it. He was gracious enough to not even question me. He just said, “Word, let me go back in.” It was purely an energy and vibe thing, and it wasn’t an issue at all. He just locked in and did it, which was amazing.

Now, there were some other situations with other artists that didn’t work out quite so well, which I can’t really speak on.

SV: Fair.

MP: Yeah. But it’s tough because when I was still new in the game working with these icons, I was incredibly intimidated in the beginning. There probably wasn’t a lot of me giving direction until I established some trust and earned their respect. Back when I was making Port Authority, I was just so happy these dudes were even showing up to work with me that my mouth was completely zipped if I had an issue. But honestly, I got lucky because looking back, everybody gave me incredible performances and classic songs anyway. I was just very, very fortunate.

SV: You also once said that “rappers will most likely pick the wrong beat if given the opportunity,” did I get that right?

MP: Back in the day, that definitely used to happen. My solution was simple: I stopped sending out massive beat batches. I only sent tracks that I explicitly wanted that specific artist to rap on. If I sent someone a package of five beats, it meant I’d be genuinely thrilled to hear them on any single one of them.

Other producers would just dump twenty tracks on an artist. I wasn’t always this calculated; I had to learn the hard way. In the beginning, it was just, “Here’s a standard beat CD.” But later on, my approach became one hundred percent curated.

SV: You ultimately sort of stepped away from multi-artist compilations because managing huge lineups is logistically difficult. When you pivoted to building full single-artist collaborative albums, did you find it easier to establish kind of a singular creative world?

MP: It is way easier with one person because you can completely lock in. They show up, you build, and you’re working together all the time. That’s why I love working with artists like Ace or Torae. I enjoy making producer compilation albums, but honestly, they almost killed me. I just had to stop because it was too much work. I did it, I’m proud of all of them, and I vowed I would never make another one again—which I still think will be the case. You never know what the future holds, but it is just so much easier to lock in with a single artist and establish a distinct world with them. You blend your styles, and it just works.

SV: You mentioned that “West Coast Love” with MC Eiht and King T came together with absolute ease in just two days. What is the trick to producing a track that retains your signature gritty, dusty East Coast boom-bap aesthetic while still perfectly accommodating the distinct cadence and laid-back bounce of West Coast icons?

MP: That is a song I am so proud of. You have two legendary West Coast artists on it, over a beat that was a little bit of a departure for me—more of a straightforward loop with just a few small additions. I was working a lot with Ras Kass at the time, which is how it all started. He trusted me and laid down his part. From there, I presented it to King Tee; he was down and delivered that incredible hook, and then DJ Revolution came in and killed the cuts.

That was during the Port Authority sessions when everything was just coming together perfectly. Man, I think I’m going to repost that track this weekend to share it again. It’s just so good—and it’s not even about me, it’s just about the honor of having those two giants on the same record. From what I remember, the whole thing came together so easily. Everyone just absolute killed it. I basically just got out of the way—I presented the beat, they did their thing, and it was pure magic.

SV: You noted that collaborating with overseas artists like Bassi Maestro in Italy or O.S.T.R. in Poland allowed you to tour 21 smaller, regional cities that typical American touring acts never see, like Poznań or Sopot. How did performing for those hyper-local, deep-country audiences differ from playing major metropolitan hubs like Warsaw, Milan, or London?

MP: I’ve performed in gymnasiums in tiny Italian towns with basketball hoops right behind me and all types of crazy setups. One thing about me is that I’ve never been scared to collaborate with MCs who don’t speak English. For example, I did a project in Poland with O.S.T.R. called Kartagina, and we actually won the Polish equivalent of a Grammy. Because of that, I got to tour deep into Poland—not just places like Warsaw.

Honestly, I usually have way more fun in those tiny places. They appreciate the absolute shit out of an international show coming to their town, so they show up purely to have a great time. That’s the entire point of performing—you want the crowd to have fun, and the more energy they give us, the more energy we feed back to them. A lot of these towns rarely get underground hip-hop shows; if a tour does come through, it’s usually a massive pop artist. So those small-town experiences end up being amazing, incredibly fun, and memorable.

Man, I’m just so blessed. I’ve traveled so much that I probably can’t even remember 40% of the specific places I’ve been. I really need to sit down and write out a complete list one day.

SV: Your massive hit “Nostalgia” with Masta Ace was born out of a trade because he didn’t have the budget left to pay for your beats at the time. In an era where bedroom producers expect instant payment via online beat-stores, what did that old-school barter experience teach you about valuing long-term collaborative chemistry over immediate financial return?

MP: Early on, I didn’t care about money with any of these guys. I was just so happy to be working. To me, a barter was always better because it allowed me to make music with legends and put those tracks on my own projects. I was never the guy saying, “Give me my money.” Most of the time, trading a beat for a verse was the very first thing I suggested, and guys were incredibly gracious back then.

Now, it’s a lot harder. Without naming names, I’ve worked with artists recently who didn’t pay me at all and I didn’t get a barter in return. It’s a part of the game now—even though it’s completely wrong.

SV: You got your big break when you slipped Masta Ace a beat CD during a session he was doing with The Beatnuts. What do you remember about the physical atmosphere of the studio room that night that gave you the confidence to hand him that tape right before he walked out the door?

MP: Yeah, we actually embellished that story a bit for the skit on the album. The truth is, I gave Ace the CD when he was literally about to jump into the elevator to leave, right there in the studio lobby. I just saw him, I was a massive fan, and I was like, “Yo, here are some beats.” That was it. I didn’t even go into the actual studio room where he was tracking with The Beatnuts; I just caught him on his way out and handed it over.

I had to be careful, too, because I worked at that studio. The owner definitely wouldn’t have been excited about me soliciting the clients, but honestly? I didn’t give a fuck. That’s exactly what I was there for. If I hadn’t taken that risk, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. I just thought, “Fuck it,” and handed him the music.

I was doing that kind of thing all the time, and look—it didn’t always work out. I once gave Common a beat CD, only to find it dropped behind the couch later on. I’ve given out millions of CDs over the years. That’s just the real shit. Ace actually listened to those tracks, he literally called me, and it started our entire working relationship. I am so glad I took that shot.

SV: You credited your team with creating specific skits to connect songs that wouldn’t normally make sense next to each other, citing Pete Rock’s Soul Survivor as the blueprint. How do you design an interlude so it acts as a genuine sonic bridge rather than just useless filler that listeners will want to skip?

MP: Learning how to sequence an album takes a lot of time. It really is an art form. I definitely had help with that early in my career from people who helped me shape my interludes, and Masta Ace handles a lot of that side of things, too. It’s so important to figure out what the overarching goal of the project is.

An interlude is the perfect place for me to showcase what people call “interlude beats”—tracks that aren’t necessarily meant to be full songs, but maybe I want you to hear ten seconds of it, fading in and out into the next track. People love hearing stuff like that. Pete Rock used to do that all the time.

SV: Right, exactly. He’d give you like fifteen seconds of a legendary loop and just tickle your ear with a feather before pulling it away.

MP: Yes, exactly! And even on O.C.’s second album, Jewelz—which I’ve been playing like crazy lately—all the interlude beats are so dope. I think it’s incredibly cool to plop a bunch of beats between tracks, but never for no reason. It has to serve as a genuine segue.

If you have a really heavy, topical song and you want to transition the mood into something a bit more fun, you have to ask yourself: What is the bridge? As the producer, you’re in total control of the pacing. It’s like directing a movie—you have to think about the transitions. Sometimes the right move is an interlude beat, sometimes it’s a soundbite, and sometimes it’s just silence. That instinct only comes with time, listening, and studying the craft.

SV: How do you sequence and mix a project, spanning something that might have taken years to make, so it sounds like a cohesive body of work when you sequence it rather than something like a disjointed mixtape?

MP: It just takes time to master. When it comes to the projects I do with Ace, I’m incredibly spoiled because we each know our roles. I’m in charge of the mixing, the production, and a lot of the drops, while he takes the lead on the song sequencing. He’ll tell me what he’s thinking, and usually, I’m just like, “Yeah, you’re spot on.” But it’s an art you have to learn. Early in your career, you just do what feels good, but over time you learn how to map out the journey: What’s the intro? What’s the middle? What’s the finale? Is this really the specific note you want to end the project on? Everything becomes highly calculated once the tracks are recorded. It’s a puzzle, and you have to piece it together so it flows perfectly.

But we live in a different era now. If I make a beat, I’m guilty of it too—we’ll throw a little snippet into our Instagram Stories just to get that instant dopamine hit of people replying “fire.” It has changed the game. People are so open to sharing things immediately on social media. Now, for the new album with Ace, obviously I’m not going to play any unreleased songs. But it actually helps my world to share the early creation stages of my instrumentals, sound expansions, or drum kits.

There is something cool about letting people in on the journey. That said, I am never impressed when a producer’s main selling point is, “I made this beat really quickly.” I don’t give a fuck about that.

SV: (laughs) Yeah, speed doesn’t automatically equal quality.

MP: Not at all! But I do think it’s cool to see people’s actual process while they’re creating. I’m completely pro-sharing if that’s what you want to do. Other producers appreciate when I reveal how I work.

SV: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s one of the genuine positives of social media—it peels back the curtain on the creative process so the craft isn’t so gate-kept anymore.

MP: Definitely. One thing about me is that I share everything I do. I’ll tell people exactly how I achieved a sound and literally give them the exact files in my drum kits. I am never worried about somebody copying me, because at the end of the day, we’re all our own chefs. I’ve given people my sounds for years, and not once have I felt like they ended up sounding just like me. They still sound like themselves.

SV: Before we wrap up, why don’t you plug some upcoming projects or anything you’re working on.

MP: I’d love to plug my very first release on my new record label, which I named after my pops—rest in peace—called Frank’s Drumset. It’s my new library music label, and The Many Moods of Marco Polo, Volume 1 will be dropping on vinyl on June 22nd. Pre-orders will be live soon on my website, MarcoPoloBeats.com The vinyl version is going to feature seven exclusive bonus tracks that aren’t on the streaming version, so for the music heads, record collectors, and sample diggers, the vinyl is definitely the way to go.

On top of that, me and Masta Ace are almost finished with our third collaborative album. It’s currently untitled, but it’ll be coming out via Fat Beats, hopefully later this year. We’re almost wrapped up, and the material is incredible.

For the producers out there, I also have a new Native Instruments Play Series VST for Kontakt called Marco Polo Drums out now, alongside five expansions on the Akai platform for the MPC heads, and a sound library available on FL Studio and FL Cloud. I’m constantly working on new tools for the producer community and sharing them on my Instagram, but this composition journey is where my main focus is right now.

Oh! And if you haven’t heard my work on the new Nas and DJ Premier album, Light Years, I was sampled four times by DJ Premier on that project. For me, that is one of the single biggest accomplishments of my entire career. Premier was gracious enough to chop up and use my original compositions on the tracks “Writers,” “Young Kings,” “My Story Your Story,” and “My Life Is Real.” That placement is actually what inspired me to do my own composition album.

Lastly, I have to mention my new t-shirt! It’s titled after my other Instagram page, Cats and Crates, which is strictly for people who love vinyl and own cats.

SV: Now you’re speaking my language! (laughs)

MP: It’s an amazing shirt, dude. It was designed by the great Mike Del Mundo, who draws for Marvel and did the artwork for Alchemist and Freddie Gibbs’ Alfredo cover. He designed it with cats, coffee cups, milk crates, and music equipment. It’s available on my site in cream and black, and I’m incredibly proud of it.

SV: Thanks so much for your time, Marco. All the best.

MP: Really appreciate that, man. You clearly did your research for this interview. Have a good day.

Further listening:

Studio albums

Compilation albums

  • Canned Goods (2005)
  • Newport Authority (2007)
  • The Stupendous Adventures of Marco Polo! (2010)
  • Newport Authority 2 (2013)
  • MPC: Marco Polo Collectables (2015)
  • Baker’s Dozen (2017)

EPs

Singles

  • “My Rights” / “Situations” / “I Just Wanna Rhyme” (2005)
  • “War” (2007)
  • “The Radar” (2007)
  • “Double Barrel” / “Hold Up” / “Combat Drills” (2009) (with Torae)
  • “Nobody” / “Rearview” (2010) (with Ruste Juxx)
  • “Back to Work” / “I Refuse” (2013)
  • “Side Effects” (2014) (with O.S.T.R.)
  • “Nostalgia” (2018)
  • “E.A.T.” / “Masta Polo” (2019) (with Masta Ace)

Productions

Guè – “Nicholas Cage” feat. Jadakiss from Gvesvs (2021)

Shylow – “The Greatest” (2002)

Masta Ace – “Do It Man” from A Long Hot Summer (2004)

Rasco – “What Happened to the Game” and “Situations” from The Dick Swanson Theory (2005)

Sadat X – “If You” from Black October (2006)

Pumpkinhead – Orange Moon Over Brooklyn (2006)

Boot Camp Clik – “My World” and “I Want Mine” from Casualties of War (2007)

Special Teamz – “One Call” from Stereotypez (2007)

Reef the Lost Cauze – “I Wonder” from A Vicious Cycle (2008)

Heltah Skeltah – “Insane” from D.I.R.T. (2008)

Braille – “The IV” from The IV Edition (2008)

9th Uno – “Sleep” from Unassociated Press (2008)

KRS-One & Buckshot – “Oh Really” from Survival Skills (2009)

Critical Madness – “Empirical” from Bringing Out the Dead (2009)

D.O. – “Bully” from Stay Driven (2009)

Verbal Kent – “Monologue” from Save Your Friends (2010)

Verbal Kent – “My City” from Save Yourself (2011)

Pharoahe Monch – “W.A.R.” from W.A.R. (We Are Renegades) (2011)

Talib Kweli – “Palookas” from Gutter Rainbows (2011)

Torae – “You Ready” from For the Record (2011)

J-Live – “The Authentic” and “Pronounced Spitta” from S.P.T.A. (Said Person of That Ability) (2011)

Neek the Exotic & Large Professor – “Hip Hop” and “My Own Line” from Still on the Hustle (2011)

Large Professor – “Professor @ Large” from Professor @ Large (2012)

Vinnie Paz – “Crime Library” from God of the Serengeti (2012)

Copywrite – “Opium Prodigies” from God Save the King (2012)

MHz Legacy – “Obituaries” from MHz Legacy (2012)

4th Pyramid – “Feel It in My Bones” from The Pyramid Scheme (2012)

Koncept – “Watch the Sky Fall” from Awaken (2012)

Supastition – “Yada Yada” from The Blackboard EP (2013)

R.A. the Rugged Man – “Shoot Me in the Head” from Legends Never Die (2013)

Demigodz – “Audi 5000” from Killmatic (2013)

Pharoahe Monch – “Time2”, “Rapid Eye Movement”, and “The Jungle” from PTSD (2014)

Nature – “Throw It Up” from Seasons Changed: Winter Edition (2014)

First Division – “Intro”, “Life & Death”, “The Trade”, “Bottom Line”, and “Take Your Time” from The Critical Path Pt. 1 (2014)

First Division – “Intro”, “Work Force”, “B.R.A.W.L.”, and “Victorious” from The Critical Path Pt. 2 (2014)

La Coka Nostra – “Blind” from To Thine Own Self Be True (2016)

Snak the Ripper – “Premium Dope” from From the Dirt (2016)

M-Dot – “Dreamscape” from Ego and the Enemy (2017)

Milano Constantine – “British Walkers”, “That Feeling”, and “10-4” from The Way We Were (2017)

Talib Kweli & Styles P – “Nine Point Five” from The Seven (2017)

Sean Price – “Prisoner” from Imperius Rex (2017)

Phonte – “So Help Me God” from No News Is Good News (2018)

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