“I loved them. Their music spoke to me, and I couldn’t stop moving my body. This guy Larry — he’s one of the best I’ve ever heard. He’s in your face, and I like all of that stuff,” he says of frontman Larry “Fallout” Morris. “Everybody in the band are super musicians.”

At that point, it hadn’t occurred to Visconti to work with the band. He had never produced a hip-hop album.

But he kept his eyes on the group and became familiar with its work.

“I think I know every iLLPHONiCS song ever written,” he says.

In June, after seeing the band play at the Bootleg, Visconti figured it was time to approach Morris and talk about the future. He didn’t think the band would be interested, given his inexperience with hip-hop.

But Visconti wasn’t totally in the dark. He likes the production values of hip-hop and its experimental feel. He’s a fan of Ludacris, Timbaland, Snoop Dogg and San Francisco rock act Sun Kil Moon, which dabbles in hip-hop. He’s most impressed by Kendrick Lamar and “To Pimp a Butterfly” (2015); Bowie was also a fan of the album.

“This is a real labor of love for him, and it shows,” Morris says of Visconti’s work with iLLPHONiCS.