Mike D is the latest musician to get his own show on Beats 1 Radio. Following the likes of St. Vincent, Dr. Dre, and Josh Homme, the Beastie Boys member will host a program airing bi-weekly on Apple Music’s internet radio station.
Dubbed The Echo Chamber, the show will debut this Friday, July 15th, at 3:00 PM ET. Each episode will see the rapper and a guest sit down together and play music that they love. Planned guests include artist he’s collaborated with, like Cassius and Slaves, as well as people he’s just a fan of, such as Blood Orange. Described as a “freeform program,” the type of music being played will range form Chance the Rapper to ESG to Arthur Russell.
“I vacillate between what’s current and things that I think have influenced me a lot,” Mike D told Rolling Stone about the variety found on The Echo Chamber. “The show also depends on records that I’m working on at this moment as a producer. So if I have an artist that I’m working with, then we’ll play records that inspired us or that we were listening to in the studio and make it more about that.”
Elsewhere, he talked about how the show’s title was influenced by dub music, why he chose to record the program inside his converted pool house, and what it’s like to get to host his own show. “In a way, it’s like a little bit like a fantasy that I’ve had since basically I started buying records as a 13-year-old,” he explained. “I’m still the same music fan. I would save my lunch money and go buy a seven-inch singles at the time, ’cause I was into punk rock. That evolved, ’cause I got turned on to different weird music like Liquid Liquid and ESG, different New York things, and then rap. So to actually be able to cut out the middle man and play records and have it be somehow part of a vocation is some weird wish fulfillment.”
Read more of the interview — which also touches upon the 30th anniversary of License to Ill, the first time he heard Beastie Boys on the radio, and more — at Rolling Stone.