Who is DJ Premier?
DJ Premier is…
DJ Premier is, rightfully, one of hip-hop’s most revered producers, and a cornerstone of the New York scene, an active testament to its once and future vitality. But while Preemo has his fundamental features—the impeccably curated jazz and soul samples; the spot-on scratched choruses; the effortlessly flowing hip-hop sound bytes—no one track will ever quite capture the man.
You’ll have to go farther back to do that: back to Brooklyn, and 1989, when Premier—born Chris Martin in Houston, Texas, in 1966—first hooked up with Guru, an MC from Boston, under the name Gang Starr. Their debut, No More Mr. Nice Guy, was just a hint at what was to come; namely, 1991’s Step Into The Arena, the first in a deadly string of albums—Daily Operation (1992), Hard to Earn(1994), and Moment of Truth(1998)—on which Premier defined the East Coast sound, bending spare sounds into his spartan, incessant beats.
Premier didn’t sleep much this decade, working with a remarkable, varied array of artists: KRS-One, Jeru the Damaja, Bone Thugs n’ Harmony, Big Daddy Kane, Mobb Deep, M.O.P, Rakim, and Fat Joe, among many others. But it’s his work for the mid-90’s hip-hop holy trinity that hit the hardest: the stomping bass line on Nas’s commanding “N.Y. State of Mind”; the remorseful piano runs on Jay-Z’s breathtaking “D’evils”; the ominous horn burbles on Biggie’s cool-as-fuck “Kick in the Door.”
Preemo could have eaten off his incredible 90’s run for the rest of his life, deeply entrenched in the rolodexes of the industry’s elite. But, to his credit, he never stopped embracing hungry MCs—from a fresh faced Mos Def to the grimy Non Phixion to his latest project, the fleet-tongued Termanology. And, oh yeah, a few years back, maybe just to prove he could, he flipped some sharp trumpet blasts into “Ain’t No Other Man,” a chart-topping Christina Aguilera single that was—unapologetically, uncompromisingly—a Premier track.
Thanks to our man Amos Barshad for this gem
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