(AllHipHop News) DJ Premier’s expansive discography is about to expand and whom better to give some insight into it than the man himself. During a recent interview, Premier discussed an upcoming “secret” album, what’s holding up his collaboration album with Nas, early Illmatic memories and more.
DJ Premier is preparing to release an album featuring Ab-Soul, Mac Miller, Slaughterhouse and other artists on a “secret” album. While one of the co-founders of Gang Starr does not reveal which artist he is collaborating with for the album, he does explain the method in which they collaborated:
That’s all I can really tell you right now. It’s a really unique project. It’s a project where I sample only one artist and only used their samples for the entire album. I strictly just use that one person – took all their samples, broke it into pieces and made my own beats out of it, and scratched it – the whole album. It was gonna be an EP, but it turned into a whole album. It’s gonna have nine tracks on it. It’s a really cool project.
DJ Premier was instrumental in making Illmatic one of the greatest albums of all time and “Memory Lane (Sittin in Da Park) is a testament to his creative chemistry with Nas. According to Preemo, after Nas laughed at the cover of the sample for “Memory Lane” (Reuben Wilson’s “We’re In Love”), it was Preemo who had his reservation about the beat:
When he heard that sample (hums the vocals) in the beginning of the song, that’s all we had looped. Well, I looped it. He was like, “Yo, that’s what I want.” I’m like, ‘Yeah, but it ain’t really hardcore beats.’ We had already done N.Y. State of Mind. I was like, ‘I want to do another one on that level.’ He was like, “Nah, because I already have a lot of hardcore stuff already. I need to get something like that to take it to a different type of sonic sound.” I didn’t really like it. So he was like, “Yo, just hook it up and if it doesn’t work as I lay the vocals, we’ll scrap it.” (raps the intro) I was like, ‘Okay’ and it made me like it. He rapped over it and I was like, ‘Alright, we’ll keep it.’
Over the last 7 months(and what feels like a decade) Nas and DJ Premier have been discussing doing a full album together. Earlier today (May 16th) Nas announced that he will be releasing The Lost Tapes 2 through his Mass Appeal Records after he releases his last album with Def Jam. According to Premier, Nas’ Def Jam situation seems to be what has delayed the project from seeing the light of day:
This is what Nas told me recently and every time that we talk this is what he tells me; he says, “Look, I got another new album I got to do on Def Jam and then my contract is over. I’d rather do your album…that’s because we can do whatever we want. There’s no strings. We can just rock out.” Everybody’s like, “When are ya’ll gonna do an album?” I’m not rushing it and I have other things to do. I don’t even take it personal when he’s like, “Yo, I’m working this first.” Whenever he says that he’s ready, I’m going in. So, that was always my way of looking at it. I never looked at it no other way. I ain’t trippin.’
Check out DJ Premier’s full interview with Life+Times here.