Thievery Corporation is a Washington, D.C.-based recording artist and DJ duo consisting of Rob Garza, Eric Hilton, and their supporting artists. Their music style mixes elements of dub, acid jazz, reggae, Indian classical, Middle Eastern, and Brazilian (such as bossa nova) with a lounge aesthetic.

Thievery Corporation started out in the summer of 1995 at Washington DC’s Eighteenth Street Lounge. Rob Garza and Lounge co-owner Eric Hilton got together over their mutual love of club life, as well as dub, bossa nova and jazz records. They decided to see what would come of mixing all these in a recording studio, and from this, the duo started their Eighteenth Street Lounge Music record label.

The duo drew attention with their first two 12″ offerings, “Shaolin Satellite” and “2001: a Spliff Odyssey” and with their 1997 debut LP, Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi.

In 2002 they released The Richest Man in Babylon on their ESL label. This fifteen track album is similar in sound and timbre to their earlier 2000 release, The Mirror Conspiracy, and features performances by vocalists Emilíana Torrini, Pam Bricker, and Loulou.

In 2005 they released The Cosmic Game, which has a darker, more psychedelic sound than The Richest Man in Babylon. The album also featured more high-profile guest singers on it, including Perry Farrell, David Byrne, and Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips.

In 2006 the group released Versions, a selection of remixes done by Thievery Corporation for other artists. They toured around the United States, playing at Lollapalooza. The tour was photographed by Rob Myers, Thievery Corporation’s sitar and guitar player, in the Blurb photo book Thievery Corporation 2006.

The group released their fifth studio album, Radio Retaliation, on September 23, 2008. It was nominated for the Grammy for best recording package. Thievery Corporation’s tour started out with 5 consecutive sold out shows at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC.
The language of the group’s lyrics throughout their career include English, Spanish, French, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian and Hindi. This reflects the group’s world music influences.

They were the opening act on August 1, 2009 for Sir Paul McCartney at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland.

Thievery Corporation is probably one of the biggest trip-hop acts that came solely from the United States as opposed to the typical trip-hop group that came from Bristol, England. They’ve been a long lasting group since 1995 and even though they’ve been on quite a hiatus, they’re still amongst one of the greatest sounding trip hop groups out there. They have released 7 albums and a few singles and EPs which is a very long list. Something about Thievery Corporation’s sound is totally undeniable.