Prefuse 73

Guillermo Scott Herren is a man of many aliases—Delarosa & Asora, Savath & Savalas and his best-known alias, Prefuse 73, among others. But what his work shares in common is its unusual fusion of digital technology and soulful expression. Born in Miami in 1976 and raised in Atlanta, Herren worked in commercial hip-hop studios before striking out on his own, translating the cadences of rap music into glitchy instrumentals informed by vintage soul and Brazilian music. Honing his chops across a handful of releases in the late ‘90s, he released his first masterpiece in the form of Prefuse 73’s Vocal Studies and Uprock Narratives, in 2001 on influential UK electronic label Warp; its kaleidoscopic microsamples proved right at home alongside the jittery timekeeping of labelmates like Autechre and Squarepusher. In the decades since, Herren has continued to stretch the boundaries of the project, dipping into straight-ahead hip-hop on 2005’s Surrounded By Silence and psychedelia on 2009’s Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian. With side projects like the jazzy Ahmad Szabo and the cinematic Reto A Ichi, there are few stones Herren has left unturned.