“Drawing and visual arts was kinda my first passion going all the way back to when I was a kid. I always felt like it was what I was supposed to do - but in reality I don't know that I ever had the skill to make it a profession.”

American rapper and producer

Aesop Rock is the stage name of Ian Matthias Bavitz, an American rapper and producer from the late 1990s and early 2000s underground and alternative hip-hop scene. He is known for being part of the wave of artists that helped define that era. He came to prominence on El-P’s Definitive Jux label, where he was signed until the label went on hiatus in 2010. In a 2010 retrospective, betterPropaganda ranked him 19th on its Top 100 Artists of the Decade list, reflecting the lasting attention his work had drawn within hip-hop.