Ever since breaking into the hip-hop scene on North Carolina trio Little Brother's "The Listening" in 2003, prolific producer 9th Wonder has been popping up everywhere, laying down his trademark ...

But Jay-Z had other ideas, asking 9th to return to the studio a few days later. That day, in a span of about a half-hour, 9th transformed a sample from an R. Kelly song into something that Jay-Z was ...

Even as hip-hop continues to stretch its sonic and conceptual boundaries, there is something comforting about the tried and true formula of beats and rhymes, which, when done right, hit the spot like ...