mrnxupumxnz8fqjggbxz

A DJ PREMIER PORTRAIT BY FANTASY ILLUSTRATOR DAN LISH

By day, Dan Lish is a senior concept artist for the video game industry in London. But in his spare time, Lish concocts some amazing illustrations for his personal use. He recently brought together the worlds of hip hop and the fantasy of graphic novels together for some incredible illustrations.

Complex caught up with Lish to discuss his many portraits ranging from Pete Rock to J Dilla. Here’s what he had to say about the Premier image.

“DJ Premier has a great face to draw. It’s full of character. He’s a self-confessed nerd, tinkering away in his studio of sound. Featured here are speaker imps, Brooklyn blocks, keyboards, and oddball characters.”

You can check out the rest over at Complex.

FYR_Nas_MEzz

NAS TRACES HIS ROOTS AND FINDS OUT WHO ENSLAVED HIS FAMILY

Nas appeared on PBS’ “Finding Your Roots” with Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and had the opportunity to trace his family origins back to the 1800s. Watch what happens when he finds out who purchased his great, great, great, grandmother Pocahantas Little.

“We introduced Nas to five generations – we’ve never been able to do this before for any African American – five generations of his enslaved ancestors,” host Henry Louis Gates told the TCA in July. “And we showed him an extremely rare document, something we’d never seen before, an actual 1859 bill of sale for his 3rd great grandmother whose name was Pocahontas Little.”

PWcatMj_szY

PRHYME WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO BE A DJ PREMIER PRODUCED SLAUGHTERHOUSE ALBUM

In an interview with XXL, Royce Da 5’9″ reveals that PRhyme was originally intended to be a collaborative album between DJ Premier and Slaughterhouse.

How did the group with DJ Premier start?

We originally were supposed to do it with Slaughterhouse, and it didn’t pan out for a number of reasons. So I ended up getting on the phone with Preem and just asking him how he felt about just me and him doing it based off of our schedules.

Being sober, you have to find things that inspire you in order to truly do it. You lose interest in things, man. Like, you’ve been going to the studio for 20 years, rapping. [Laughs] Now it’s like, okay, you have to find something that drives you to the studio. So this was that thing. Any opportunity that I get to be able to work with Premo, I try to take it. I’ve been working with him on every single album, no matter what the situation is. So once we got three or four songs in, it was starting to feel like the stars were lining up. Everything started falling into place, and I’m into that. So I was like, alright, cool. And by the time we got to nine [songs], that was it. It was like, if we’re gonna do this, let’s do it.

Gang+Starr

Gang Starr: The True Heads Merch Mix

This is for the true Gang Starr heads that not only love the classic singles, but love the rarely played album cuts, B-Sides, rare collabos and not your regularly mixed records.

We wanted something to go along with the launch of our Official Gang Starr Shop and we will continue to keep the legacy going. Shouts to GURU and Lil Guru(KC), Lana, Justin, the whole Elam family and the Gang Starr Foundation for staying strong throughout the whole loss of our soldier, father, lyricist and MC”. Love can never be shattered and that’s what we bring everyday all day.

-DJ Premier

Gang Starr: One Of The Best Yet

Register to get the free download link:

DJPremier-JustOneRecord

WHICH PRODUCER USED THE MOST SAMPLES IN HIP HOP HISTORY?

The good folks over at DJbooth.net compiled a list of producers who have used the most samples in the history of hip hop. Care to take a guess who tops the list?

#1 DJ Premier: 1,458 Tracks Sampled

Premo isn’t just the number one sampler in hip-hop history, he’s number one by a mile and a half. Granted, he has been steadily making beats for decades, but he still has an astounding number of flips. I mean, 1,458 is more than double 9th Wonder, who I consider to be one of the best producers ever. I guess every scratch counts, but still, this amount of sampling is mind bottling. Dude even beat out Girl Talk, who makes his money on unimaginatively taking other peoples tracks. All hail the king!

You can check out the rest of the list, which includes Girl Talk, DJ Shadow, Dr. Dre and more, here.

9th-wonder-combat-jack-show

9TH WONDER SPEAKS ON LITTLE BROTHER, JAY Z & RAPSODY ON ‘THE COMBAT JACK SHOW’

9th Wonder hits The Combat Jack Show and gives us one hell of an interview.

Live from Atlanta, at the tenth anniversary of the #A3c Music Festival, we finally caught up with producer and Harvard scholar 9th Wonder where he share his incredible story about leading a scene in North Carolina with the incredible Little Brother crew to not giving JAY Z a track he had for his own group. The breakup with Phonte and Big Pooh, making hits for Destiny’s Child and why he’s going so hard for his Jamla Records premier artist Rapsody, why he really wants to collaborate with Rich Homie Quan and of course, his journey in becoming a professor at Harvard University. This was truly an honor building with 9th and I hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

common-jay-elect

COMMON AND JAY ELECTRONICA ANNOUNCE TOUR

Fresh off of their performance together at the 2014 BET Hip Hop Awards, Common and Jay Electronica have announced that they will be touring together. The “Nobodys Smiling” tour, named after Common’s album of the same title, starts in Las Vegas on November 21 and will end in New York on December 10. Check out the tour dates below.

11/21 – Las Vegas, NV (House of Blues)
11/23 – Santa Ana, CA (The Observatory)
11/24 – Los Angeles, CA (House of Blues)
11/28 – Albuquerque, NM (Sunshine Theatre)
11/29 – Denver, CO (Ogden Theatre)
12/01 – Dallas, TX (House of Blues)
12/02 – Houston, TX (Warehouse Live)
12/03 – New Orleans, LA (Howling Wolf G)
12/04 – Atlanta, GA (The Tabernacle)
12/07 – Washington, DC (Fillmore)
12/08 – Philadelphia, PA (Theatre of Living Arts)
12/09 – New York, NY (Fillmore)
12/10 – New York, NY (Fillmore)

prhyme ART

THE OFFICIAL ARTWORK AND TRACKLIST FOR PRHYME

Check out the official artwork and tracklisting for the DJ Premier and Royce Da 5’9″ collaboration album PRhyme.

01. PRhyme (Intro)
02. Dat Sound Good f. Ab-Soul & Mac Miller
03. U Looz
04. You Should Know f. Dwele
05. Courtesy
06. Wishin’ f. Common
07. To Me, To You f. Jay Electronica
08. Underground Kings f. Schoolboy Q & Killer Mike
09. Microphone Preem f. Slaughterhouse

December 9th can’t come soon enough.

Preme Pepsi

DJ PREMIER REFLECTS ON THE CREATION OF BIGGIE’S “UNBELIEVABLE”

In a recent interview with Pepsi where DJ Premier revealed three of his favorite studio sessions in three different cities, the legendary producer opened up about working with the Notorious B.I.G. on “Unbelievable.”

“One of the best sessions was really doing “Unbelievable” with Biggie. I didn’t have time to do a track when he had already [almost] finished Ready To Die. He was like, ‘Yo. I need this last one. I need a B-side for my first single “Juicy.” I wanna play it for you.’ He came and played it for me, he hadn’t shot the video yet. He was like, ‘I need a beat where I gotta still do it for my [people] at home on the block.’

“I was like, ‘Yo, man. I don’t have anything to concentrate on right now and I don’t wanna hold you up.’ He said, ‘Man, I don’t care. I need something.’ So I told him to just come on up and come down.

“He came down and as soon as he walked in I was playing him those little notes. [Starts humming the intro to “Unbelievable” as we know it.] I was doing all of that. He was like, ‘Yo, I like that. Make it dance and not do the same rhythm.’ So I programmed in the beginning with the intro beats. [Starts beat boxing] And then I did the hook. He was like, ‘Yo. That’s it!’

“Now, the “Unbelievable” part with R. Kelly’s “Your Body’s Callin’”—I didn’t plan on putting that in there. I didn’t know if it was gonna be in the proper key. So when it came down to him asking me to put that in there, I did it. I did it the next day because I didn’t have the record on me at the time. This day and age I could have went straight to Harlem and did it. But it happened. It sounded exactly like how it was supposed to sound….

Read about how the song ended up in Funkmaster Flex’s hands and two more of Preemo’s favorite studio sessions here.