Mike Gao is equal parts musician and inventor. Seriously, he’s like the freaking Thomas Edison of experimental hip hop. Since 2005 he’s been releasing dicey, glitchy hip hop on Galapagos4. This Chinese-American, LA-based producer also creates machines that revolutionize the art of DJing and production.

Among the various robots of his imagination, Mike Gao has had a hand in creating Beatbox 2 MIDI, which allows you to trigger sounds using your mouth; Turntable Gestures, which allows you to control parameters using hand-on-vinyl motions, and the touch screen drum machine.  Mike Gao is the man who knows how to use these innovations to their fullest potential.  His style chimes in with a lot of the instrumental, wonky, stuttery hip hop in LA, but while the other guys are rocking APC40s, Mike Gao’s got an arsenal of androids at his disposal.