Last week Jeff Weiss hipped me to a drop over at Metal Lungies where the writers, along with special guest Marco Polo, discussed their five favorite Premier tracks of all time. The subject was triggered by Common’s recent asinine statement referring to Kanye as “the new Primo,” which is so intrinsically wrong on so many levels that I don’t have time to digress upon it here. Nevertheless, I began to think about my favorite Premier productions, and came to the realization that I could never whittle my list down to five, or even twenty for that matter, without some measure of difficulty. This in turn inspired my most ambitious mix yet, a career retrospective of sorts featuring forty Premier cuts in a little over sixty minutes. I won’t waste anyone’s time with some half-assed synopsis of his contributions to hip hop (or how the man arguably embodies it more than anyone), but even if you have the faintest taste for a little of that boom bap from time to time, I guarantee you’ll find something to like here.
Naturally, there are a few notes to keep in mind. I have seemingly hundreds of Primo album tracks, remixes, and rarities on wax, but due to the pacing and structuring of the mix, I had no choice but to exclude certain songs. Yes, I would have loved to place Biggie’s “Unbelievable” somewhere in the sequence, but my copy of Ready to Die (1994) has a pretty severe gash there that I couldn’t work around. Same goes for Mos Def’s “Mathematics,” but I haven’t been able to track down an affordable vinyl copy of Black on Both Sides (1999) for years. Please don’t clog up the comments section with, “Where’s ‘Come Clean’?” or “What, no M.O.P.?” I fit in what I could, and if a perusal of the track listing has you scratching your head at inclusions like Sauce Money and Teflon, trust me, the production more than makes up for it – one of Primo’s many talents was elevating wack rappers from pitiful to golden (see the entirety of Group Home’s Livin’ Proof [1995]). The mix is basically quartered into four sections, and while I didn’t intend for so many Gang Starr tracks to bring up the rear, the tempos pretty much dictated it turning out that way. I experienced a few headaches during its creation, but rediscovering tracks like “No Surrender, No Retreat” and that insane Sonja Blade joint at the 45-minute mark more than made up for them. Enjoy.
“Forty Cornerstones of Primo” – DJ Premier feat. Various Artists 62:02 (July 2007)
Tracklist:
“You Know My Steez” – Gang Starr
“A Million and One Questions (Extended Remix)” – Jay-Z
“Memory Lane (Sittin’ in Da Park)” – Nas
“Wrath of My Madness (DJ Premier Remix)” – Queen Latifah
“M.U.G.” – O.C. feat. Freddie Foxxx
“Freaky Flow (DJ Premier Remix)” – Special Ed
“Work” – Gang Starr
“Drive-By (Slow Rollin’ Remix)” – Boss
“Saturday Nite Live (DJ Premier Remix)” – Masta Ace feat. Lord Digga
“Seen It All” – Screwball
“Suspended in Time” – Group Home
“Royalty” – Gang Starr feat. K-Ci & Jo-Jo
“Brooklyn Took It” – Jeru the Damaja
“Rappers R. N. Dainja” – KRS-One
“Crush” – Big Shug
“Dirty Game” – Cormega
“Danger (Remix)” – Blahzay Blahzay
“In the Trunk (Glove Compartment Remix)” – Too Short
“1-2 Pass It (Remix)” – D&D All-Stars
“Above the Clouds” – Gang Starr feat. Inspectah Deck
“Invasion” – Jeru the Damaja
“No Surrender, No Retreat” – Chi-Ali
“Let the Man” – Mr. Dong
“The Wonder Years” – MC Lyte
“Supa Dupa Star (Demo Version)” – Group Home
“Everybody Wanna Know” – Charlie Baltimore
“The 6th Sense” – Common
“Rep the Hardest” – Pitch Black
“Married to the Game” – Teflon feat. Styles P.
“B.Y.S.” – Gang Starr
“Look 4 tha Name” – Sonja Blade
“Mass Appeal” – Gang Starr
“Intruder Alert” – Sauce Money
“Mic Stance (Alternate Version)” – Afu-Ra
“Step in the Arena” – Gang Starr
“Ease My Mind (DJ Premier Remix)” – Arrested Development
“Take It Personal” – Gang Starr
“What a Mess” – Xzibit
“Battle” – Gang Starr
“Freak Like Me (DJ Premier Remix, Instrumental)” – Heather Hunter
30 Comments so far
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Where’s ‘Come Clean’? And no M.O.P.??
Just playin’, great mix though. Thanks for name-dropping our site too. We’ll definitely be doing more posts like that for other producers in the future. We’ve got one for Alchemist too, hopefully the zShare links are still active
http://metallungies.com/2007/06/beat-drop-alchemist/
Comment by buhizzle 07.17.07 @Flood,
What can I say, this is fantastic. Flexing those DJ muscles now!
I’m nearly finished my first piece - check your e-mail later and see what you think.
Laters
Dan
Comment by Dan Love 07.17.07 @[…] Beat Drop: DJ Premier @ Metal Lungies and then @ Flood Watch Music. […]
Pingback by .:REBEL MAG:. » Round Up 07.17.07 @holy shit. I haven’t dloaded this yet, but from the tracks I know it’s gonna be fantastic.
Cheers mate!
J
man, this is golden. thank you for this. will be linking this. best post of the month on any blog
Comment by wes 07.18.07 @Yes, this will do quite nicely. Get in my iPod Nano! Just wanted to let you know that I’m still alive. One.
Comment by Dart_Adams 07.19.07 @Good stuff, iam on it like a rash on a hookers ass. :) Have a good weekend bro.
Comment by Carbon Fr3e 07.19.07 @Great stuff Flood, thoroughly enjoyable. 4 for 4 with the mixes. Keep up the good work.
Comment by b 07.20.07 @DOPE. Downloading this now.
I loved your Soul Brothers blends too, this is seriously one of the best music blogs out there right now.
Ever thought about making some of these available as individual songs in a .rar file?
Aaron - I’d do it if I knew how! Hopefully sometime this week I’ll link to a folder where all of the individual tracks could be downloaded. Maybe as a “limited time only” thing…
Comment by floodwatch 07.22.07 @Oh, it’s easy. If you download 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/), you just select the mp3s in a folder, right click and choose 7-Zip, then click on “add to archive”.
then just put the .rar or .zip file on divshare, zshare, etc.
Hope that helps.
From the moment u know my steez drops, I knew this was going to be the shit. Thanks
Comment by Adam 10.18.07 @[…] In other news, ya’ boy (apparently, in hip-hop slang, that means me….thanks Black Album!), had a feature on Stephen Stills run in the Arizona Republic. Kevin Murphy, of So Much Silence fame, has taken over as Music Editor, so expect a lot more stuff of mine to appear over there. Justin “Aquarium Drunkard” Gage has also begun contributing to the Republic, (see his David Vandervelde Q & A), as has Eric “Marathonpacks” Harvey, so the paper’s music site is definitely worth book-marking, if you’re into the whole “brevity” thing. Cracked has the 10 Worst Celebrity Bands. Can’t really knock any of those choices. I Am Fuel You Are Friends has cuts from the bonus EP that came with Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Floodwatch drops a ridiculously good mix of DJ Premier’s greatest hits. Milk Was a Bad Choice debates casting decisions if the Thundercats ever became a movie. Needless to say, it it did get made, it would probably get boycotted because you just know that the phrase, “Thundercats Ho!!!” would insult someone. […]
Pingback by Passion of the Weiss » Blog Archive » Links Presented By Internet Celebrities 10.18.07 @the beat primo did for “nas is like” is prob. my favorite primo beat of all time…other notables — the beat he did for pitch black and the one for royce the 5′9 which i believe was called “hiphop”
Comment by mills 12.11.07 @Mills - I have that Pitch Black 12″ somewhere, but I couldn’t work it into the mix.
Comment by floodwatch 12.11.07 @Floodwatch - did u mix these with the vinyl or on a serato esque system?
Comment by mills 01.02.08 @All tracks were from vinyl - I always leave the cracks and pops in - and each of the four sections were mixed live, which I then put together in Peak, I believe.
Comment by floodwatch 01.02.08 @Heavy Heavy rotation!!! Check how we do it!!!! Where’s the primo scratches???? Peace Scratchers Delight one love HIP HOP…..
Comment by ScratchersDelight 03.21.08 @there’s a pretty cool Premier mix floating around that Ludacris’ DJ Jaycee did a while back called “Pizza At Primo’s” that u should peep. it’s over at smokingsection.rawkus.com and they interviewed him about it too…
Comment by Christian 05.18.08 @My 2 Fav Primo Beats are “Capture (Militia Pt. III)” and “Battle”. Both are freakin CRAZY!!
Comment by Tha 5th Element 07.29.08 @Great mix. Downloaded the two instrumental mixes too. Free sick mixes at the click of a button? You’re website is a god send brotha!
Comment by David 09.16.08 @Leave a comment
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This is great!!!
Comment by brandonsoderberg 07.17.07 @