LAMAMIMET

Bob Power was born on April 5, 1952 in Chicago and grew up in the New York suburbs. He began playing guitar as a child, studied music theory and composition at Webster University in St. Louis, and performed with the R&B band New Direction before moving to San Francisco, where he immersed himself in jazz and earned a master’s degree in jazz composition. In 1982 Power returned to New York City, taking any gig he could find while scoring commercials and recording sessions. A chance fill‑in at Calliope Studios led to work with the hip‑hop group Stetsasonic and introduced him to the Native Tongues collective. He engineered landmark albums such as A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory, De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead, Erykah Badu’s Baduizm and D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar, helping define the crisp, low‑end sound of 1990s hip‑hop. Power’s reputation earned him two Grammy nominations for his engineering on Meshell Ndegeocello’s Peace Beyond Passion and India.Arie’s Acoustic Soul. He later ran a production suite at Sony Music Studios and taught recording arts at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute, influencing a new generation of engineers. Bob Power’s death was announced on March 1, 2026 at age 73 by the music platform Okayplayer. Colleagues such as Questlove and DJ Premier remembered him as a legend who brought clarity and depth to sampled music.