I would always have turntable elements in my records even if it was just one scratch.
— DJ Premier
I know what a Gang Starr album that's done is supposed to sound like.
The Nike joint 'Classic' with Kanye, Nas, KRS-One, that was a remix - Rick Rubin did the original, and his was a double-time tempo; mine was a regular boom-bap tempo, and they liked it so much that we ended up doing the video to it.
With 'Family and Loyalty,' I didn't already have an idea for that video. So I called Fab Five Freddy. I wanted to get a director that I didn't have to explain Gang Starr to and he was with it.
A lot of Friday nights, Guru and I would go kick it with Biggie, since he was just three blocks down from us.
Guru and I had a house in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, for a while and we used to have wild parties there when we weren't in the studio. It was like a fraternity house.
I've always cared about how certain songs fade into other ones and which songs should follow others. I studied that as a consumer and fan before I even got into music.
My mom's an art teacher, so I always had music in the house. She always had records, and I was mesmerized by the mechanics of how a turntable works.
Yeah, Travis Scott's dad taught me how to ride minibikes and how to repair the engines. His name's Jack Webster. Jack had a drum set and his brother had a bass. So I used to play with them, and that's what started me wanting to get into music and take it serious. And this is before rap.
My crew used to listen to 'Taking It to the Top' by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.
I remember going backstage on a random night and Kanye goes, 'Ayo Premier, I'm about to drop an album called 'College Dropout' and I'm rapping on the whole thing. And as I soon it drop it's gonna go double platinum.' I looked at him like, 'That's a bold statement to make if you never rapped before.'
Guru's family gave me a piece of his ashes. I saw the gold box of ashes that his father had when we had the memorial service. He had a nice giant gold box that had his name on it. It was really nice. I know all the family members had ashes that they all spread and took on their own. So I said lemme ask is it cool if I have some.
I'm all about competition; still am to this day. That's how you should be, but not with any malice. From Mike Will Made It to Boi-1da to Mike Zombie, I'm out to get 'em all and it's that friendly competition that keeps us all on our toes.
Everybody deserves a piece of where they live, in some type of fashion. Music is just my way of preserving that.
Everything I do is in a New York state of mind. I'm indebted to preserving the sound of the city.
The great thing was that both K-Ci and JoJo told me to not make an R&B track that was reminiscent of radio hit records. 'Make a Gang Starr track and we'll write our lyrics to that,' they told me. They couldn't stress it enough.
I believe in karma; what you do will come back.
If I feel like something needs to be updated, I'll break my neck to outdo the original.
Guru's like Tupac. He just records and records and records.
I'm passionate about music in general, not just hip-hop. But when it comes to hip-hop, I don't wanna see it die culturally.
Guru died tragically and there were so many rumors about how he went out. I got to see him in the hospital right before he passed, and one of the last things I said to him before I walked out of the room was that I was going to make sure that his family was straight.
I've done some scoring in the past, but I want to get into it on a bigger level - a Danny Elfman level.
Actually, for 'Family & Loyalty' I wanted Drake on the track but he was about to go on tour for his Scorpion album, so timewise it wasn't going to work.
I've been sequencing all of my albums, from any Gang Starr stuff to Jeru to Group Home, all of it. I pay a lot of attention to that and really always have. I've even helped sequence friend's projects.
I grew up in a town called Prairie View. It's like 45 minutes outside of Houston.
I love heavy metal, Metallica. I'm into Jefferson Starship and acid rock.
When I miss Guru, I bump one of our records. Then I shed a tear and get back to work.
When I was 19 I had a record deal.
You can't do seven successful albums and just hate each other. Our yin and yang, and night and day, is what made us great when we went into the studio.
Guru always wanted to do what he called a 'chick record.' By coincidence, every time we did one, he was either breaking up with one or with a new girl that he loved.
I'm a country boy.
I'm not really a crying type.
I remember Bumpy Knuckles came in wearing all mink everything and said, 'Yo, when I spit my verse, I gotta pull my guns out and aim them.' He was serious! I told him that I was going to duck in the event that those guns accidentally went off. He pulled out the twin glocks, spit his verse in one take and said, 'I've got a meeting to go to' and left!
I'm a very spiritual guy.
Guru was actually who A&R'd and got Lord Finesse signed because he used to listen to the demos at Wild Pitch. And he was the one who actually said, ‘Yo, this Lord Finesse guy is dope.' And Stuart Fine signed him to Wild Pitch. That's how we became labelmates.
When you have a deep focus, you can't go wrong at all. Not when you're an expert at what you do.
Bad Name' is just that head-nod, traditional loop over a breakbeat, chopped up, and it sounds like the way I do my thing.
It's whatever - people like me and Dre are music people, so we're beyond just hip-hop. We're purists. Not everybody who makes beats is a purist.
I'm not a tough guy, but I'll throw down just like the rest of them if I have to.
Guru had such a different voice from most people. Plus he had a Boston accent! So, I always made sure the beats were tailored to him.
Every now and then there might be a beat someone turned down that I have as an unused beat. But everything that predominantly matches the artist in my 30 years of doing this, it was me walking in and sitting there with no drums, no samples, no nothing, and making a beat on the spot.
I was a heavy kid, even though I was into sports and very active.
My musical knowledge goes beyond hip-hop.
Jay Z and Biggie and Nas always listened to my direction. They listened and they applied it and I also listened to their opinions and that's why the records came out so good.
When I got my knee replacement and I opened my eyes straight outta surgery, the first person standing there was Guru's son.
The radio stations strayed away from the raw hip-hop that they were playing in the early 1990s. We were like, 'All this watered down stuff is dominating the airwaves. We should make a record to make fun of that' and Guru's like, 'Let's call it ‘Mass Appeal.''
All the Public Enemy albums, I knew what records they were sampling but was like, 'How'd they construct it like this?!'
I listen to my early Gang Starr interviews, I'm like, damn I was really trying to sound like a New Yorker then.
The passing of my accountant, Mary Coleman, who was the first person I shouted out on 'In Memory of...' was particularly devastating for me. She was beyond my accountant. She was my mother away from home.
The majority of my life is spent doing nothing but godly things, especially when it comes to dealing with other people.
