Gramatik

Gramatik, born Denis Jašarević in Portorož, Slovenia, in 1984, is one of the artists most responsible for turning “glitch-hop” into a real thing people cared about. Now based in New York City, Gramatik built his sound around a mashup of hip-hop beats — the kind influenced by DJ Premier, RZA, and Dr. Dre — with electronic production and a chilled-out, boom-bap-meets-bass sensibility that felt totally different from the four-on-the-floor stuff dominating EDM at the time.

His break came in an unexpected way. His 2008 album “Street Bangerz Vol. 1” ended up charting on Beatport’s Top 100 Chill Out chart for six months straight, which is a wild run for a release nobody saw coming. That run got him noticed, landed him an agent, and in 2009 he signed to Pretty Lights Music as the label’s very first new artist signing outside of Pretty Lights himself — a pretty big co-sign in the scene at the time.

From there, Gramatik built out a catalog that leaned further into his hip-hop and jazz-sampling instincts while keeping the electronic backbone. Albums like “The Age of Reason” (2014) and “Epigram” (2016) became staples for fans of the bass and glitch-hop underground, and he picked up three “Best Track” wins at the 2012 Beatport Music Awards along the way. He’s also been vocal about artists controlling their own music and distribution, at times giving away full projects for free rather than going the traditional label route.

Gramatik has kept collaborating across genre lines over the years, working with acts like Big Gigantic and Waka Flocka Flame, and more recently teaming up with Redman and Jayceeoh on new material. It’s the kind of guest list that shows exactly where his music sits — somewhere between hip-hop, bass, and electronic, refusing to pick just one lane.

More than fifteen years into his career, Gramatik remains one of the most respected names in the glitch-hop and bass-driven hip-hop space, an artist whose crate-digging sensibility and DIY streak helped shape a corner of dance music that still sounds like nothing else.