“I had written rap songs in the early '90s and even did a couple homemade rap songs with my brother in like '88 or '89, but it was just like... I don't even know how to say it. Just plain rap. I was just rapping about whatever, there was no real style or direction, it was just semi-braggadocious rhymes that probably imitated 100 other rappers.”

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.