Bob Power, Engineer and Producer Who Excavated Hip-Hop’s Low End, Dead at 73

Obituary Bob Power, Engineer and Producer Who Excavated Hip-Hop’s Low End, Dead at 73 The widely revered musician worked on seminal records by A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, and the Roots By Jon Blistein Jon Blistein Contact Jon Blistein by Email View all posts by Jon Blistein March 3, 2026 Bob Power, the musician, producer, and engineer who sat behind the boards on classics by A Tribe Called Quest , De La Soul , Erykah Badu , The Roots , and D’Angelo, has died. He was 73. Power’s death was confirmed by NYU’s Clive Davis Institute, where he worked as a professor. A funeral listing stated that Power died on Sunday, March 1, but no cause of death was given. Power helped shape the sound of hip-hop and R&B in the early Nineties, especially when it came to plumbing deeper drum and bass grooves. He engineered the album that arguably defined this aesthetic, A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory , while his credits also included Badu’s Baduizm , D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar , De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead , and several Roots albums, including Do You Want More?!!!??! and Things Fall Apart . Paying tribute on Instagram , Questlove wrote of Power, “You could NOT encounter a more engaging, enthusiastic, laser focused craftsman of sound and sonics. I mean he’d let me bug him ad nausea about ‘what does this button do? That button?’ Bob was our training wheels for how to present music. I’m so devastated by his passing. Thank you for changing all of our lives Bob.” DJ Premier called Power “one of the iLLest Engineers of all time,” while Badu wrote on Instagram , “What a great loss for the music community today. The great engineer, producer, mentor and friend @bobpower has travled on. I / we appreciate you. You taught me soo much… Love and easy breaths to your loved ones ! Our community will forever Say your name.” Power was born in Chicago in 1952, raised outside of New York City, and started playing guitar as a kid. He went on to study classical theory an...