This staff pick is biased. I met Gobby 15 years ago and have since had a front-row seat to his prolific output. Generally, I think the word prolific is a neg of sorts. It is frequently used in conversations that touch on an artist’s outsider-ness or unrealized career. It often means “You have tons of shit that no one’s heard.”

Gobby, my favorite musician with tons of shit no one’s heard, is truly prolific. There are hundreds of songs. There is the six-part Mixtape From the Du series, there is New Hat. There is Mut. There are 32 releases on Nina. There is the Dj Creative Citizen project. There is El Honko Mixed—a 2-hour-long album concept that was conceptualized and composed as a fully playable board game about a Bostonian Leper who is continually reincarnated as a dishwasher. And of course, the lost records: “Yolanda”, “Rumble Pak”, “Dragon Shit.” There is so much Gobby.

After School Program is from 2007-2008, the beginning of this body of work. These are Gobby’s first Fruity Loops projects, artifacts of a young producer experimenting with the seeds of his vocabulary.

I remember when a friend texted me in 2008 because Gobby figured out how to load a Daddy Yankee sample into his DAW. “It’s Over.” Gobby’s ear for samples and sense of rhythm grew into a trademark sound, further crystalized by his tendency to resample his own compositions. The melody in “Made in USA” sneaks into tracks across various beat tapes. “Papaya Nectar” is one of countless examples of Gobby recreating the beat from Lil Mama’s “Lip Gloss,” another popular trope in his work.

There is a distinct musicality to Gobby’s songs that few are capable of accomplishing. For a decade-plus, Gobby’s been known amongst the music community as a ‘producer’s producer.’ I am pleasantly surprised and thrilled that this origin story album still exists to be shared.