Photo: Mike RiF Nuñez

Earlier this year, Cookbook was driving home late at night listening to some of his own instrumental productions. He’d dropped some friends off about an hour outside of Los Angeles and the idea for “The Smell of Success” hit him. A producer and rapper who was formerly part of the group L.A. Symphony, he says, “I’d always wanted to write a song about success and the hook just started coming to me.” The finished track, which sees him musing on the dynamics of money and achievement over a jittering, melancholy groove, also features a guest rap from Stones Throw artist Guilty Simpson. It’s a collaboration Cookbook says came about after he bumped into a fellow rapper who’d recently worked with Simpson backstage at a show. Connections were traded and, as he puts it, “Guilty Simpson was really cool and was good enough to jump right on the track.” The resulting team-up is the title track to Cookbook’s upcoming album The Smell of Success, which drops on July 31st.