Producers Guild is a series celebrating the creators behind the boards of your favorite songs. Listen to today's episode and leave your comments, suggestions, questions, criticisms, and/or whatever you have for me below so we can continue the conversation.
I've been holding this one back for several months, as I try to queue up a new entry in the Producers Guild series before I unleash the songs that didn't make the original cut. The problem is that Chris "DJ Premier" Martin is hip hop, essentially: regardless of how you or I may feel about his output as of late, the man lives, breathes, eats, digests, and most likely fucks hip hop, and as such, he has a lot of goddamn songs under his production belt that could have been included on a Producers Guild episode. Narrowing this one down to a mere eighteen tracks was tougher than it should have been, so I had to impose some arbitrary rules just to make it easier on my own psyche.
So there are no Gang Starr songs on episode # 2.5. You read that right. I had to challenge myself somehow.
Odds are fairly high that you clicked to read more of today's post because you already know who DJ Premier is, what he stands for, and what he's contributed to the culture, and you were merely interested in hearing my mix of eighteen additional songs from his catalog, wondering just what I could possibly pick while still dancing around Mixcloud licensing requirements. You could just click on the player below to hear the whole thing out, or you can scroll down a bit to see the tracklist, I suppose.
Today's episode bypasses Preemo's more successful collaborations in favor of some of his lesser-known work, so there will be some artists you didn't expect to see appearing today. I'd like to think I included at least one song that will leave you scratching your head, but time will tell.
PRODUCERS GUILD EPISODE #2.5: DJ PREMIER
1. Termanology - "How We Rock" (featuring Bun B)
2. Big Daddy Kane - "Show & Prove" (featuring Scoob Lover, Sauce Money, Shyheim, Jay-Z, & Ol' Dirty Bastard)
3. Reks - "Say Goodnight"
4. KRS-One - "'P' I's Still Free"
5. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony - "1st Of The Month (DJ Premier's Phat Bonus Remix)"
6. Show & A.G. - "Next Level (Nyte Time Mix)"
7. Rah Digga - "Lessons of Today"
8. D&D All Stars - "1, 2 Pass It"
9. Truck Turner - "Who Am I"
10. Blaq Poet -"Message From Poet"
11. MC Eiht - "Run tha Blocc" (featuring Maylay)
12. Slick Rick - "Need Some Bad"
13. DJ Premier - "Wut U Said?" (featuring Casanova)
14. Prop Dylan - "Shock & Amaze"
15. Joell Ortiz - "Project Boy"
16. Ed O.G. - "Sayin' Somethin'"
17. Jeru the Damaja - "Come Clean"
18. Nas, 50 Cent, & Nature - "Too Hot"
Episode 2.5 is straight hip hop, eschewing Premier's detours into rock and R&B in favor of a straightforward rap mix featuring artists from... well, I'd love to say "all over the world", but we're mainly talking New York, with some West Coast gangsta shit and one dude from an entirely different continent thrown in for good measure. If this isn't the most thorough mix possible, that's just because there are too many fucking songs for me to choose from.
*(EDITED TO ADD) I get that there may be some question as to whether that last song was truly produced by DJ Premier. The Interweb is no help, but when I stumbled upon it during my research, I thought the guest list alone was so ridiculous that it would be a goofy inclusion, which, of course, runs the risk of it not even being legit to begin with. So here's the thing: if it's real, then it's real. If it isn't, I'll simultaneously eat crow while informing the reader of how widespread Preemo's influence is on the rap game in general, so much so that he has inspired numerous copycats. I also reserve the right to simply re-edit the mix - there's a reason it's the last song on there.
Hopefully you enjoy the mix, and fingers crossed I jog your memory about a song you had completely forgotten about until today. I'm also running this episode in a roundabout way to force myself into finishing another entry in this series, so we'll see how that goes!
Let me know in the comments what you think, what songs I missed, and to question how I could leave that new Gang Starr song with J. Cole off of the mix. (The answer is simply, "I recorded this a long fucking time ago", but we can still discuss it further is you want.) And be sure to subscribe to RandoMax Radio for more mixes, and leave me your requests.
See you in a week.
-Max
Hi. Love the blog, love the series. Too Hot wasn't produced by Primo, though. It was apparently done by Chop Diesel. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteI believe you, since the song as a whole was suspect anyway, but any proof you could provide would be appreciated. I'm talking liner notes, photographs of cover art, interview segments, a video recording of Chop putting the beat together himself while a copy of that day's newspaper lies on a table in the background, anything works.
DeleteI have checked the original CD, which i have. There are no production credits there. Which is strange to begin with, becuase one would assume that if there were big name producers there (such as Premier), it would be advertised or they would at least get credit. Most reliable internet sources point to Mr. Diesel. And anyway, this track was never included in any of Primo's self-released beat collections or mixtapes, so that's an indication, too. I do know that Reef also contributed to this mixtape... Track sounds like a premier soundalike, but is pretty dope anyway. Keep up the good work. Love the blog.
ReplyDeletereally? , you pick some bullshit tracks
ReplyDeleteNothing from Livin Proof? Nah son, I'll pass. Blog is cool commentary though. Ten years reading
ReplyDeleteLivin' Proof was represented with two tracks (sort of - they were a remix and a demo, but still) on the original Episode 2. There's a link within the article to the original mix.
DeleteThanks for reading!
Never knew about the Bone Thugs remix until today. Sounds weird but I kinda like it.
ReplyDelete