Christopher Edward Martin
(born March 21, 1966 [1]), better known as DJ Premier
aka as Primo and was known in the past as Cutmasta C, is an American record producer and DJ, and the instrumental half of the duo Gang Starr, together with MC Guru on the lyrical side. Originally from Houston, he has lived in Brooklyn, New York, for much of his professional career. Premier is hailed as an architect of "hardcore East Coast hip-hop known by its heavy drums and sparse loops." [2]
The Source
magazine named DJ Premier one of the five greatest producers in hip-hop history, while editors from About.com ranked him as #1 in its Top-50 Hip-Hop Producers list. [3]
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DJ PREMIER TICKETS
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Collaborations
Besides producing the entirety of the
Gang Starr catalog with
Guru, DJ Premier has created countless classics for many groups and solo artists since 1989. His style is vintage hardcore hip-hop, crafted around soul samples and boom-bap drums coupled with his trademark scratch and cuts for hooks. Premier has worked with almost all of the V.I.P.'s on the hip-hop scene and notable collaborations include the following.
- Afu-Ra ("Defeat", "Mic Stance", "Equality", "Monotony", "Lyrical Monster", "Blvd.", "Sucka Free", "God Of Rap")
- AZ ("The Come Up," "The Format")
- Big Daddy Kane ("Show & Prove", "Any Type of Way", "Just Rhymin' With Kane" with Just-Ice)
- Big L ("The Big Picture (Intro)," "The Enemy," "Platinum Plus", "Ebonics - Premo Mix")
- Black Eyed Peas ("BEP Empire", "My Style (Remix)")
- Capone-N-Noreaga ("Invincible," "Grand Royal")
- Christina Aguilera ("Ain't No Other Man," "Back In The Day," "Still Dirrty," "Intro (Back To Basics)," "Thank You")
- Common ("The 6th Sense," Scratches for "The Game")
- Crooklyn Dodgers ("Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers")
- Das EFX ("Real Hip Hop (Original Version)", "No Diggedy", "Kaugth In Da Ak (Remix)")
- D.I.T.C. ("Thick", "Ebonics - Premo Mix", "Da Enemy", "Where Ya At (Remix)")
- Dilated Peoples ("Clockwork")
- Fat Joe ("The Shit is Real (DJ Premier Remix)," "Dat Gangsta Shit," "Success (DJ Premier Remix)," "The Crack Attack," "John Blaze (DJ Premier Remix)," "That White")
- Jay-Z ("D'Evils," "Friend or Foe," "Bring it On," "A Million & One Questions (Premier Remix)," "Friend or Foe ’98," "So Ghetto," "Intro: A Million And One Questions/Rhyme No More," "Intro: Hand It Down")
- J-Live ("School's In", "The Best Part")
- Kanye West (Scratches for "Everything I Am")
- Kanye West, Nas, KRS-One, and Rakim ("Classic (DJ Premier Remix)")
- Kool G Rap ("On the Rise Again" (featuring Haylie Duff), "First Nigga (DJ Premier Remix)"
- KRS-One ("MCs Act Like They Don't Know," "KRS-One Attacks," "I Can't Wake Up," "Mortal Thought," "P Is Still Free," "Higher Level," "Rappaz R. N. Dainja," "Wannabeemceez," "Outta Here", "Bring It To The Cypher", "Criminal Minded '08")
- Limp Bizkit ("N 2 Gether Now" featuring Method Man)
- Ludacris ("MVP")
- M.O.P. ("Downtown Swinga ’96," "Breakin tha Rules," "New Jack City," "Stick to Ya Gunz," "Brownsville," "Salute," "Firing Squad," "Downtown Swinga '98," "Handle Ur Bizness (Remix)," "I Luv," "Salute Pt. 2," "Premier Intro," "Every Day," "Face Off," "On the Front Line," "Follow Instructions," "Roll Call," "Rugged Neva Smoove (Premier Remix)," "Bloody Murdah," "Downtown Swinga")
- MC Lyte ("Wonder Years")
- Mobb Deep ("Peer Pressure", "Cop Hell (Remix)")
- Mos Def ("Mathematics")
- Nas ("N.Y. State of Mind," "N.Y. State of Mind Part II," "Nas is Like," "Represent," "Come Get Me," "2nd Childhood," "Memory Lane," "I Gave You Power")
- O.C. ("My World", "War Games", "Win the G", "M.U.G.")
- Ol' Dirty Bastard ("Pop Shots (Wu-Tang)")
- Rakim ("When I B on tha Mic", "New York (Ya Out There)", "It's Been a Long Time", "Waiting for the World to End")
- Reks ("Say Goodnight", "Cloud 9”)
- Royce Da 5'9" ("Boom," "My Friend," "Hip-Hop," "Hit ’Em!" "Ding Ding," "Shake This")
- Snoop Dogg ("The One & Only," "Batman & Robin")
- Termanology ("Watch How It Go Down", "How We Rock", "So Amazing")
- The Lady of Rage ("Microphone Pon Cok", "Some Shit", "Unfucwitable")
- The Lox ("Recognize", "None of Y'All Betta")
- The Notorious B.I.G. ("Unbelievable," "Kick in the Door," "Ten Crack Commandments," "Rap Phenomenon", "Machine Gun Funk (Remix)")
- Verbal Threat ("Reality Check")
- Xzibit ("What A Mess") [4]
...and many more.
However, some of Premier's most lauded non-Gang Starr productions have been his collaborations with lesser known artists. With MC
Jeru the Damaja, Premier crafted one of the
East Coast's landmark albums in
The Sun Rises in the East
, released in 1994, as well as the 1996 follow-up,
Wrath of the Math
.
Also from the Gang Starr Foundation, Premier would produce and supervise
Group Home's
Livin' Proof
; although overlooked at the time of its 1995 release, the album has since come to find similar acclaim.
Other notable work include
Lord Finesse's hailed 1990 debut
Funky Technician
(7 tracks plus mixing and overseeing),
KRS-One's
Return of the Boom Bap
(6 tracks out of 14) and a close relationship with
M.O.P. producing 6 songs each from their albums
Firing Squad
,
First Family 4 Life
and
Warriorz
.
In 2009, DJ Premier produced
Blaq Poet's album
Tha Blaqprint
and is currently producing all of NYGz upcoming album
Pros & Cons
- both released through Premier's label Year Round Records.
Though almost exclusively a hip-hop producer, DJ Premier collaborated with
jazz musician Branford Marsalis's experimental group
Buckshot Lefonque, on its debut album. He also found himself in the pop world, producing five tracks for
Christina Aguilera's album
Back to Basics
, which included the first single off the album "
Ain't No Other Man," which would win a grammy for
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2007. Other non hip-hop artists that appear in Premier's production credits include big names such as
Janet Jackson,
Brandy,
Limp Bizkit,
D'Angelo,
Craig David, and
Macy Gray.
Premier has remixed numerous songs for artists around the world, both inside and outside of the hip-hop realm. He has worked with artists from
Russia,
Japan,
Britain,
Canada, and even produced a track for former porn star
Heather Hunter.
Samples
DJ Premier's style of production epitomizes the New York sound of his earlier peers. He is known for
sampling jazz,
funk, and
soul artists, as well as sampling an artist's past work when creating a new track for that same artist. In addition, his encyclopedic memory of hip-hop lyrics allows him to distinctively speak with his hands by scratching in lyrics from several different songs to construct new phrases.
[5] Premier's non-
Gang Starr collaborations are known for his oft-imitated combinations of short vocal samples, often from multiple artists, to create a chorus. For example, in the chorus of Mos Def's "Mathematics," Premier cuts the following in quick succession:
"The Mighty Mos Def" (from Mos Def's "Body Rock"),
"It's simple mathematics" (from Fat Joe's "John Blaze"),
"Check it out" (Lady of Rage from Snoop Dogg's "For All My Niggaz & Bitches"),
"I revolve around science" (from Ghostface Killah's verse on Raekwon's "Criminology"),
"What are we talking about here" (from the movie Ghostbusters
),
"Do your math" (from Erykah Badu's "On & On"), and
"One, two, three, four" (from James Brown's "Funky Drummer")
Influences
In an interview with
XXL Magazine
, DJ Premier was asked how his sound evolved, to which he replied, "
Marley Marl is my number one inspiration.
Jam Master Jay, Mixmaster Ice and
UTFO. Grandmaster D and
Whodini.
DJ Cheese,
Grandmaster Flash,
Kool Herc,
Afrika Bambaataa.
Jazzy Jay, even
Cut Creator. Seeing them do what they do. It’s black music, it’s black culture, it comes from the ghetto. How can you not relate to ghetto people when that’s the rawest form of blackness? Even though it’s not a good place in regards to the economy and how bad people have it in the neighborhood, the realism’s there, and that’s what we were born out of. So I very much pay respect by doing the same type of music in return."
[6]
Relationships with artists
The early line-up of the
Gang Starr Foundation in the mid-90's included
Jeru The Damaja,
Group Home,
Big Shug and
Gang Starr. DJ Premier was fully responsible for the production of
Jeru the Damaja's first two albums, "
The Sun Rises in the East" and "
Wrath of the Math". Jeru released two albums since then, with Premier having nothing to do with either of them.
The supposed reason that the two are no longer affiliates is that there was apparently a financial dispute between them, and Jeru felt that Premier was cheating him out of his fair share.
As far as
Group Home was concerned, Premier commented, "They don't respect what fed them," in a 2003 interview, going on to say that the only reason he produced a track on their second album was because
Guru said he would rhyme on it.
[7]
Besides the Gang Starr Foundation, Premier is closely affiliated with
M.O.P. who he names as one of his all-time favorite groups. The relationship started with the remix of
Rugged Neva Smoove
in 1994, a single from the groups first album that also included the exclsusive B-side
Downtown Swinga
. From their Premier has been producing 1/3 of the songs from each album as well as overseeing and mixing the projects. DJ Premier is set to be the executive producer on
The Foundation
, M.O.P.'s upcoming 2009 release.
Today DJ Premier's closest affiliations is with
NYGz and
Blaq Poet who are both signed to his record company
Year Round Records. Premier produced half of NYG'z pre-debut
Welcome 2 G-Dom
in 2007 as well as Blaq Poet's
Tha Blaqprint
album in 2009.
DJ Premier at the Slaughterhouse release Party! talked in an interview about the Slaughterhouse project, why there is no Premier beat on it, the Royce da 5'9 album called
Street Hop
, the meaning of real hip hop and his upcoming website, and the possibility of a new Gangstarr album with Guru is down.
[8]
Recently in 2009, DJ Premier talked to a few online magazines about him being interested in working with Siti Nurhaliza, which is a popular pop singer from Malaysia. Magazines and television channels all across Asia is hyped up by this news. DJ Premier's interest in doing collaborations with pop artists is not a surprise because he was a co-producer for Christina Aguilera which is also a pop singer in the states. Siti Nurhaliza have yet to confirm about the collaboration.
Discography
References
- allmusic Biography
- The Beatnuts Biography
- Top 50 Hip-Hop Producers
- http://hiphopgremlins.com/2008/08/21/cloud-9-prod-dj-premier-reks/
- Exclaim! Canada's Music Authority
- FEATURES. DJ Premier: Remedy
- DJ Premier Interview - TRIBE - tribe.ca
- http://nahright.com/news/2009/08/15/video-dj-premier-interview-at-slaughterhouse-show/