Tired of this, but recently Joe Budden announced he got DJ Premier on the board for his next LP. That’s dope. And surprise surprise, also Nasir slipped some info about his new LP. His plan is to have DJ Premier, Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Alchemist & RZA on the boards.

Noreaga: “We was starving to work with Premier. We was so starving to work with him that I think we paid him all his money up front. He was like, ‘I want this amount.’ We were like, ‘Here!’ And this is the first time we paid somebody up front. And it’s the first time we ever waited. Premier had us waiting for a good four to six months. To this day, Premier doesn’t give out beat CDs. If he makes a beat, then he makes it deliberately for you. It’s not like if you don’t want it, Nas or Mobb Deep could get it. Nah, if you don’t like it then it gets erased.

“The crazy thing was I remember Premier telling us that his little brother was like the biggest CNN fan, so I guess we had an advantage because at this time Premier was as hot as fish grease. He was the hottest thing on the market so he had a waiting list like the welfare line. We didn’t even get on the phone with him. He just got the money. I remember right before he actually gave us the beat we was going to ask for our money back. We were like, ‘This is ridiculous, you got us waiting for too long.’

“But then he told us to come to the studio. He was in the studio with us and he played us three or four bangers and was like, ‘Oh, we like it.’ And he was like, ‘Nah you don’t like it.’ And he erased the shit right in our face! I mean three of four times. If he was playing the beat and we didn’t go ‘Whooo!’ and were just like ‘Yeah, this is good.’ I swear to you, he erased the shit right in front of our face if he didn’t get the reaction he wanted. When he played the beat he wanted us to jump up in the air and be like, ‘Whoo!’

“He had the skeleton for ‘Invincible’ but he didn’t have it all and he had a few other choices. And obviously when he played ‘Invincible,’ we was like, ‘This is it!’ We was at D&D studios, he would step out for a minute. We stepped out. And he put the touches on there and we came back and it was done. We were like, ’Finally!’ We wrote our verses right then and there on the spot.

“The first line that comes, ’Yo Melvin Flynt drop, my whole collasso stop/I can’t believe I fucked up and made a half-ass album/My excuse is, my pops just died, and I ain’t wanna make music/My pops just died.’ Well, it was so much on my mind and I wanted to be honest with the fans. It wasn’t even about dissing my last project, or dissing myself, it was just about being honest. That’s just how I felt and it was so much on my mind, it wrote itself. Premier played the beat, I sat there and wrote the rhymes, and I was like, “Let me get this shit off my chest.” What better way to get it off my chest then a Premier beat? I was lucky enough for the world to feel that.

“But you see Eminem took my shit, right? Eminem just said, ‘Let’s be honest, that Relapse album was ehhh.’ I’m like, “Yo, I respect you, Eminem, but you know where you got that from.” [Laughs.] There’s never been another rapper on planet Earth that dissed himself. I was the first person to do it. It was just something that was on my mind the same way it was probably on Em’s mind. You throw out a product that you’re not proud of. And you know at the end of the day, you have a job to promote it, you have a job to try and sell it. But deep down inside you wasn’t 100% feeling it.

“At the same time, people come up to me like, ’Melvin Flynt is your best album, nigga!’ And I don’t argue with them. But it wasn’t about the material for me, it was about my heart not being in it. To this day, when I walk down the street, people will just drive up and be like, ’Yo! Melvin Flynt is your best album!’ And then get in their car and roll off. Like there are people who take it personal with me! But I was just being honest, something I thought I owed the fans. Something I thought I owed myself.”

Capone: “Premier was basically our homeboy. That was years in the making. Premier wanted to be on The War Report. But when we was recording The War Report, we couldn’t afford him. When it was time to do it and things was right, it was time to do it. But getting Primo was hard because he had a million projects he was working on at that time. But he came to the table. Primo is never going to send you a bunch of beats, he’s going to send you one beat and you’re going to run with it. And when we got that one beat it was like, ‘Yes!’

“We was recording in D&D a lot so we had to see Primo. I remember it being grimy because it was D&D. At D&D you don’t sit on certain chairs, all the walls [got] graffiti, it’s roaches everywhere. It’s foul! It’s the foulest studio you can record in but it has the best sound.

“I like to write about a lot of shit I see. [That’s why you hear,] ‘For my niggas in the bridge, with the $50 dollar Panasonics on the black gates.’ Back then tapes was the shit, there wasn’t no CD players. They had these little black Panasonics that was like $50 dollars. QB and most hoods in NYC had these little black gates. And these little black gates, the radio handle fits perfectly over three of the top parts of the black gate. So your radio sits there all day, you don’t even got to put it on the floor, you can just chill on the bench and have your radio on the gate and just ride it out all day. That’s where I came up with the Panasonics on the black gates. If you go to any hood right now you’ll find somebody with a radio on the gate. It might not be the same old black Panasonic, because they got mp3s and CDs and all types of shit now. But back then, that $50 dollar Panasonic was the shit. And if you was a real hood nigga, you already know that that radio was so easy to take apart and put together, so a lot of people was hiding they work in there. And I don’t mean they 9-5.”

Source: Complex.com

Greg Nice: He said my rhymes from “Funky For You.” Look at Poetic Justice. There’s this room where [2Pac’s character’s cousin] has the equipment at. Look at the wall, over the bed: there’s a poster of me and Smooth. I was on the soundtrack for that movie too. I got four other records that haven’t even come out, that I’m on with [2Pac].

DX: From One Nation?

Greg Nice: Yep. All of that One Nation, I brought everybody. Everybody he wanted to see, I’m like, “You want [DJ] Premier to come up with you?” [2Pac] was like, “What? Hell yeah!” I called ‘Preme. [He was like], “Hell yeah!” I called Fat Joe. “Hell yeah!” Buckshot and [the Bootcamp Clik], “Hell yeah!” Everybody started comin’.

DX: All those names you just mentioned, were they able to come out?

Greg Nice: Yeah. The only who didn’t come was Joe.

DX: So Premier and 2Pac actually had the opportunity to work together?

Greg Nice: Yeah, and [DJ Premier] loved [2Pac] as well. To the point where that’s all he talks about. “Man, 2Pac came to my fuckin’ house!” Showbiz too, “Greg brought 2Pac to my living-room, man, sittin’ with me, chillin’.”

DX: I have to tell you, Greg, that’s a crazy story, man. I’m glowing, man. Nobody knows this. You worked on those four records. Do you personally want to see them release, or are they better left to mystery and memory?

Greg Nice: It depends on how it sounds. It depends on how it’s mixed. I assume, if it were to be mixed, it’d be mixed with a different flavor now. It would be a whole new sound. One is actually on this Pac’s Life [release] that they did. One of those songs [“International”], I got the publishing credit on the record, ‘cause they took different inserts of records we did and made that one song. They put [Nipsey Hussle and Young Dre The Truth] on there, rappin’. [Afeni Shakur] sent me the paperwork, saying, “My son would’ve wanted his friends to get that money. I want to take care of it the right way.” That’s what she did.

Source: HipHopDX

I recommend you to read the full interview, very nice.

Lastly, Joe Crack was asked about his latest work with DJ Premier, the Gang Starr producer with him Joe’s been recording with for over 15 years. Following up 2008’s “That White,” Joe was asked about The Darkside’s “I’m Gone.” Joe revealed that the song was recorded in the April days during Guru’s untimely death. “Guru had just passed away [when DJ Premier and I] was in the process of working. We was about to do it, and [Guru] had just died, like the day before or somethin’, so the whole vibe changed,” said Don Cartegena, who added that he loved Guru. “So he [used] a real sad-sounding sample and shit, but I knew where he was comin’ from.” Joe indicated that he was referring to Big Pun, although Joe had also lost a friend and group-mate in Big L. Sharing his opening verse, Joe rapped, “When [the song] starts off, I go, ‘Premo’s on this beat, yeah I know it sounds different / But his mans just passed, his soul’s just risen / A cold, cold world is the words that was given / As I met him, 15, with a burner, out of prison / Gangster, fuck that, Gang Starr / Tell Nas Hip Hop’s dead now, my man’s gone.'”

Fat Joe’s The Darkside Volume 1 releases July 27 on E1 Entertainment.

Source: HipHopDX

And DJ Premier in NYC with Lord Finesse and more on July 22th, check.

Deep down in the heart of Germany is an island any sane hip hop head will want to be on less than three weeks from now; Splash Festival in Grafenhainichen. Going on its twelfth edition the festival has come a long way from the local event it once was back in 1998 and it has gotten more renowned each year since, now hosting a remarkable mix of old and new with several veterans who’ve been around since day one balanced by the up-and-coming and some huge names in the industry such as Missy Eliot, Nas,, Damian Marley, the French legendary group IAM, Raekwon and the Wu-Tang Clan. In short, the combination of its unique location and line-up make it a must see.

While most artists come from Germany, traditionally one of the largest hip hop nations in Europe, the festival hosts performers from all corners of the planet. An excellent chance for these guys to show Europe what talents they possess and open up our minds to new styles we otherwise would not have come across. Along with the diversity of its performers the venue has attracted numerous dedicatees of equally divergent backgrounds. Splash festival is not only the dopest hip hop venue on the continent, it is also a way of bringing together a community usually devided by all sorts of boundaries by means of the one thing we all have in common: real love for real hip hop music.

So if you’re into good times and great music, Splash can provide you with all of that Friday the 23rd of july and the weekend following. Wherever you’re from, it’s worth the trip.

More info is available at http://www.splash-festival.de.

Get your tickets now:

Text by Samuel Van Daele.

This looks dope…

RAMMΣLLZΣΣ

1960 – 2010

It’s a DVD with 2CD included.

Pre-order now at juno.co.uk (Europe).