Legendary Engineer Bob Power Dies
Hip-hop and R&B lost legendary engineer Bob Power, who shaped the sound of A Tribe Called Quest, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo and countless others while also teaching at NYU. Tributes are pouring in from across the music industry for his massive contributions to the genres.
Bob Power was 73 years old when he died on March 1, 2026. Before his iconic work in hip-hop, the Chicago-born musician had a diverse career scoring music for the PBS series *Over Easy* and writing jingles for brands like Coca-Cola and Mercedes-Benz. His entry into the world of hip-hop began in 1984, when he filled in for a vacationing engineer at New York's Calliope Studios. That session was for the group Stetsasonic, which led to him becoming the go-to sonic architect for the Native Tongues collective, including De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest. Power was the engineer behind A Tribe Called Quest's groundbreaking 1991 album, *The Low End Theory*, a record he described as the "Sgt. Pepper's of hip-hop." Questlove of The Roots would later dub Power the "KING of the Low End" for his ability to craft deep, rich bass sounds that defined the era's production. His influence extended deeply into neo-soul, engineering D'Angelo's debut *Brown Sugar* and Erykah Badu's *Baduizm*. His work on Badu's single "On & On" earned him a No. 1 R&B hit, and the album won a Grammy for Best R&B Album. Power himself was a two-time Grammy nominee for Best Engineered Album, for his work on Meshell Ndegeocello’s *Peace Beyond Passion* and India.Arie’s *Acoustic Soul*. His work is also preserved in the U.S. National Recording Registry. In a tribute, Questlove stated, "Bob was our training wheels for how to present music." Erykah Badu remembered him as a mentor, noting that because of him, "*Baduizm* is the most bass-heavy singing album in history." For nearly two decades, Power was also an arts professor at NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, where he retired in 2025. His former students include the artist Maggie Rogers.
