13 albums – original Madlib productions, hip-hop, jazz, beat tapes – and DJ mixes from Madlib’s 4-ton mountain of vinyl. A grand experiment, a year in music. Thirteen CDs, thirteen booklets. Release date: March 27

Originally announced in 2010: “Madlib is launching Madlib Medicine Show, a 12-part music series (12 CD’s, 6 LP’s) on his own imprint, Madlib Invazion. Odd numbers, beginning with #1 in Jan. 2010, will be original hip-hop, remix, beat tape and jazz productions; even numbers will be mixtapes of funk, soul, Brazilian, psych, jazz and other undefined forms of music from the Beat Konducta’s 4-ton* stack of vinyl.”

Years before this series was announced Madlib had talked about an idea to release an album a month. For this producer, whose work thrives on a freestyle cut & paste, sometimes blurring the lines between original work and DJ mixing, there was little time or patience for the normal marketing and promotion norms of the music industry. By the start of 2010, it was time to experiment.

All told, the series became 13 releases, plus a few extra cuts of vinyl, and took nearly twice as long as expected. Along the way, some records got complicated, a few other projects took hold, some of the listeners lost track, while many others stayed for the whole trip.

Also see: Stand-alone edition of Madlib Medicine Show #13: Black Tape