Toronto beat maker Marco Polo likes his hip-hop beats to sound a certain kind of way, and that’s exactly how he makes them; raw, dusty, sample-heavy and with hardboiled drums that could bust the inner sanctums of even the most sturdy, fortified speakers. So when he tells you that his inspiration comes from that Golden era of rap that produced classic rappers like Q-Tip, Kool G. Rap and KRS-One, it really comes as no surprise.

“I started off with being a Hip-Hop fan first and foremost,” Marco reminisces with regards to his love affair with the art form. “My Dad brought home the first A Tribe Called Quest album because he liked the song “Bonita Applebum,” and then I really got into the music too. After a while, I wanted to make the transition from being a fan to actually doing something with it so I attended the School of Engineering in Toronto. When I graduated I moved to NYC and got an internship at the infamous Cutting Room studio, and that put me right in the mix with a lot of artists and producers I looked up to and was listening to at the time. It was actually the same studio that Just Blaze (Jay-Z, Jay Electronica) came up in as well.”

That leap of faith worked out exceptionally, and it ended up leading to more chance encounters that really set off his career. He ended up meeting Buckshot of the legendary Black Moon at DJ Rhettmatic’s (of the Beat Junkies) crib in L.A. and passed him one of his beat CDs. Six months later, Dru-Ha and Buckshot called him back saying they’d picked seven tracks from his CD for a new Boot Camp album. That served as his initial introduction to the vaunted Duck Down movement, and since then he’s released several key projects through the label: his own street-approved Port Authority LP, and two noteworthy collab LPs with new-school Brooklyn spitters, Torae (Double Barrel) and Sean Price protégé, Rustee Juxx (The eXXecution).

Next up is his new LP, The Stupendous Adventures of Marco Polo, a unique project which features exclusive cover art by Marvel Comics artist and another Toronto representative, Mike Del Mundo. The album drops June 29^th and Marco Polo describes it as follows.

“It’s basically a collection of songs I’ve done from 2004 till now. There are tracks on there that slipped through the cracks, b-sides, remixes, that sort of thing. It has the “Radar” remix, a track that got mad love from iconic producers like Premier & Pete Rock, a remix to a song from one of my favorite groups, Diamond District and it even has a feature from Grand Daddy I.U. – someone people haven’t heard from in a while.”

If you’ve been scratching your head recently and asking where the back-to-basics rap went, just explore Marco Polo’s discography, and you’ll find what you’re looking for. “I’m definitely inspired by that Golden era of rap – Pete Rock, DJ Premier, Large Professor,” he says in closing, “and hellz yeah, you’ll hear that feel in my sound. But I’m not trying to go back to that zone or bring back that era – I take influences from it, add my own flavor and put a 2010 twist on top of it.”

Pick up the Marco Polo’s new LP, “The Stupendous Adventures of Marco Polo” in stores June 29^th via Duck Down Records.

Words by Geo Hagan with Images courtesy of Duck Down Records.