ProleteR

ProleteR is the recording name of French producer and musician Benjamin Roca. Born in Toulouse, he began playing drums and guitar as a child and spent his early musical years performing with local rock and punk bands before turning towards beatmaking and electronic production in his early twenties. He launched the ProleteR project in 2011 with Curses from Past Times, developing a distinctive sample-based sound that combines hip-hop rhythms with vintage jazz, swing, soul and early popular music. Feeding the Lions and Rookie expanded his international following, while the three-part Tribute to the Masters series paid homage to influential figures from jazz and soul history. His later catalogue includes Life Playing Tricks, Bubbles, Fairuz and Moonswings, a collaboration with Dutch producer LVDS. Temperamental Cats, released in 2025, introduced collaborations with Napoleon Da Legend, Spark Houston and Takada Fu, while Atlas(t) drew from samples gathered across different regions of the world. ProleteR returned in 2026 with Bricolage, an album centred on swing, nu jazz, neo-soul and detailed sample construction. His live performances have also developed beyond the traditional producer setup, with tours featuring a supporting trio of French jazz musicians. Across his releases, ProleteR has established a warm and immediately recognizable form of instrumental hip-hop that connects contemporary beat culture with the sound of older records.