The man pictured above is DJ Premier, legendary hip hop producer and DJ. From about 1992-1995 this man provided the soundtrack to my life. I realize that I’m prone to overstatement, and maybe I big up people too much on this blog, but in this case no superlative can capture the love I had for this man’s music as a teen or the hold it possessed over my adolescent eardrums. Perhaps a barrage of statistics will do it: As of 1994, DJ Premier comprised 50% of my favorite group Gangstarr, had been responsible for about 50% of my favorite album Illmatic, and was 50% co-author of my favorite song Come clean. That is a triple crown championship, never to be matched again.

I bring all that up because SEM my friend from those days just sent me a link to a great feature put together by Derezon & Tre two DJs from Berlin for their show Sound Scan Radio. It’s called 14 Deadly Secrets and in it Premier tells the stories behind 14 of his greatest productions. If you enjoy his music, this is a MUST…

DOWNLOAD
right-click + ’save link as’ (mac) / ’save target as’ (windows)

At one point, Premier tells the story of how he came up with the sample for ‘Nas is like’, one of his most loved (and played out) songs. It’s a pretty funny story (’I found this old record that I was gonna throw away. It was an old 10 inch record from a Lutheran church, and it was pink with a black fish on it…’) but it’s way funnier if you hear the original song he’s talking about. Here it is…

John Rydgren - Cantata of New Life

DOWNLOAD

(I wish I had the digging skills to have come up with that on my own, but I definitely do not. I got it from Kevin Nottingham’s great site.)

Anyway, if you doubt Premier’s genius or that sampling is in fact an artform, check that sample track against what it eventually became - the 5 star, Mount Olympus, still played at almost every hip hop party in The Netherlands to this very day jam Nas Is Like…

DOWNLOAD

Popularity: 5% [?]

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
• « Tim Maia, Rational Culture, and Stupid Intelligence
• » Daytime Television in Post-Obama America

• BROWSE / IN everything is everything jam on it
• « Tim Maia, Rational Culture, and Stupid Intelligence
• » Daytime Television in Post-Obama America