DJ Premier on the Making of “Animals”, Working With Dr. Dre on “Compton”
While DJ Premier has known Dr. Dre since the late ’80s, the two legends of their respective coasts had never made music together, but that just changed with the release of Dre’s Compton album, the first project from the gangster rapper turned production god turned headphone mogul in 16 years.
It all started about a year ago when Dre called Premo, asking him if he had any beats for a new project. At the time Premier didn’t know anything about this mystery project except that Dre assured him that Detox had been scrapped, but when the good doctor calls, you answer. So Premier sent him a folder of five beats and kept his fingers crossed. It was just hours later though when he heard back.
“I was headed to Korea, the plane was literally lifting off, and my phone goes off,” DJ Premier told me when I reached him by phone. “And he [Dre] goes, ‘Yo, this is amazing, this is dope.’ I thought wow, what timing, right on liftoff. At least I got that text to let me know I was on the right track.”
Premier hoped for the best and the two stayed in touch, but it became clear that Dr. Dre was so busy working on the N.W.A. movie it would be a while before anything firm crystallized. Fate, however, would continue to bring Premier into Dr. Dre’s mysterious project. Premier got connected with Anderson .Paak during work on a collaborative project with Russian producer BMB Spacekid that would result in “Til Its Done.” The trio parted ways, but shortly after they finished Premier got another call from Paak, who had continued to write to another beat they had created.
“The Freddie Gray murder by the police happened, the riots in Baltimore jumped off, so Anderson hit me up and said he was really angry about what had happened, that he had made a song about it,” recounted Premier. “At the time it was called ‘FSU’, which means Fucking Shit Up, talking about how they treats us like animals, the only time they turn the cameras on is when we’re fucking shit up.”
They planned on releasing the song as a loose single to show their support for Baltimore, but at the same time Anderson .Paak was fortioutusly meeting with Dre and told Dre that he and Premier had just finished working together. “Paak played it for him and Dre said, ‘This totally fits this soundtrack I decided to do for the movie’ – music inspired by the film, it’s not in the movie. Dre wanted to rap on it, so since the song was already finished we changed the arrangement, and he had me come out to L.A. to work on it,” said Premier.
And just like that, after decades of waiting for the hip-hop planets to align, DJ Premier was in Dr. Dre’s home studio making music, working to seamlessly blend Premo’s classic east coast sound with Dre’s boming west coast DNA. “We started off by getting on the mic, talking shit,” said Premier. “And then I started scratching, cutting in other cuts: Eminem, Ed O.G., Torae, Rhettmatic was there and gave me a line to scratch and close it out. And it was real cool, making magic happen. But I kept quiet until now.”
Source: djbooth.net
The DJ Premier & Dr. Dre Collaboration Has Been Confirmed!
Tracklist from the album “Compton: A Soundtrack By Dr. Dre”:
01. Intro f. Dr. Dre
02. Talk About It f. King Mez & Justus
03. Genocide f. Kendrick Lamar, Marsha Ambrosius & Candice Pillay
04. It’s All On Me f. Justus & BJ the Chicago Kid
05. All In a Day’s Work f. Anderson Paak & Marsha Ambrosius
06. Darkside/Gone f. King Mez, Marsha Ambrosius & Kendrick Lamar
07. Loose Cannons f. Xzibit & COLD 187um
08. Issues f. Ice Cube & Anderson Paak
09. Deep Water f. Kendrick Lamar & Justus
10. One Shot One Kill f. Snoop Dogg & Jon Connor
11. Just Another Day f. Asia Bryant & The Game
12. For the Love of Money f. Jill Scott & Jon Connor
13. Satisfiction f. Snoop Dogg, Marsha Ambrosius & King Mez
14. Animals f. Anderson Paak
15. Medicine Man f. Eminem, Candice Pillay & Anderson Paak
16. Talking To My Diary f. Dr. Dre
Pre-orders are available on iTunes!
DJ Premier, Black Sheep’s Dres & His Son Team Up With ‘Angry Birds’
Many children are obsessed with video game franchise Angry Birds, but Sidney Max, son of Black Sheep’s Andres “Dres” Titus, took his infatuation to a whole new level. After falling in love with the franchise, Max began creating rhymes about the game and showcasing them to his father in his spare time. Dres filmed a video of his son performing an Angry Birds tribute, which garnered Max a social media following. Dres then called up his buddy DJ Premier to discuss the possibility of him producing the track. Premier said yes. The trio then teamed up with a contact at Rovio, the mastermind behind the famous game, and Angry Birds signed on to go hip-hop.
On July 1, Angry Birds took over the streets of New York to film a music video for Max’s track “Here Come The Birds.” “It’s a really cool track,” says producer DJ Premier of the track that made him want to work with Max. “He has the cutest little voice. It’s pre-puberty!” The video features Angry Birds graffiti, green screen animations, as well as DJ Premier, Max, and his Dres. “Sidney even gets to pull out a bow and arrow and yell ‘the birds are coming’ and shoot the pigs and things,” explains Premier. “It really was a fun shoot!”
Angry Birds will drop the video on Aug. 17, which will kick off an official weeklong hip-hop-themed tournament on Angry Birds Friends. “You can play this on Facebook or on the mobile game and the beauty of it is that you are competing against your friends,” says Rovio Entertainment’s marketing director, Kai Torstila. This particular tournament will center upon the culture of old school hip-hop. “It will have special graphics that are inspired by Max, Dres and Premier’s contribution to the genre,” Torstila adds. “We wanted to do little nods towards Angry Birds in a visual style and wanted to achieve something that is stylistic, a little bit retro, and pays homage to the hip-hop culture, but with a lot of modern twists to it.”
Once the video is released, it will provide gamers with instructions on how to enroll in the tournament. Rovio will also be providing links where people can download the exclusive track. “It’s not the first time that we’ve dabbled in music,” says Torstila. “But this is certainly the first time we’ve done a custom collaboration at this level and a video to kick off a social gaming campaign,” he adds. Going forward, Rovio says they absolutely intend to keep working with high profile artists and fusing their take on the Angry Birds world into upcoming projects.
Meanwhile, Premier has found a whole new area calling. “Now the video has taken place, we are talking about possibly doing a whole soundtrack with kids and I’ll produce it. That hasn’t materialized yet but it would be dope if it does,” he tells Billboard. The famed DJ/producer also revealed that the game has grown on him quite a bit since becoming involved with the campaign. “I was in the studio with my artist Khaleel and his son’s mother when [she] grabbed my phone and put the game on it.” And after months of sneaking in gaming sessions in between recording time, Premier is an Angry Birds mastermind at this point. “It took a minute but I got it down. I can get to all the high levels now,” he says with a laugh.
Source: Billboard.com
Papoose – Hold the City Down (Prod. By DJ Premier) (NBA 2K16 Trailer)
One of the two custom tracks by DJ Premier for the NBA 2K16 soundtrack
Related: NBA 2K16 Soundtrack Revealed
NBA 2K16 Soundtrack Revealed
2K has officially revealed the tracklist for the NBA 2K16 soundtrack, the most expansive musical collection in NBA 2K franchise history. Curated by DJ Mustard, DJ Khaled and DJ Premier, the soundtrack features more than 50 tracks available in six in-game playlists. NBA 2K16’s partnership with the 3 DJ’s brings with it two custom tracks from each producer, for a total of six new tracks produced specifically for this year’s game.
You can listen to it on Spotify, right here.
DJ Premier Playlist:
Custom Track: Papoose Prod. By DJ Premier, “Hold the City Down”
Gang Starr (feat. NYGz, H. Stax), “Same Team, No Games”
Nas, “Made You Look”
Living Colour, “Cult of Personality”
Jeru The Damaja, “You Can’t Stop The Prophet”
Custom Track (Instrumental): DJ Premier, “Bum Bum Bum”
Ramones, “Blitzrieg Bop”
NYGz, “Policy”
DJ Premier & Bumpy Knuckles, “More Levels”
PRhyme, “U Looz”
DJ Khaled Playlist:
Custom Track: DJ Khaled (feat. Ace Hood, Vado, Kent Jones), “365”
DJ Khaled (feat. Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Baby, Lil’ Wayne), “We Takin’ Over”
Ace Hood, “Hustle Hard”
Rick Ross (feat. T Pain), “The Boss”
Jay Z, “Where I’m From”
Custom Track (Instrumental): DJ Khaled, “Black Rims”
Wiz Khalifa, “We Dem Boyz”
Ace Hood (feat. Future & Rick Ross), “Bugatti”
Nas, “Represent”
DJ Khaled (feat. T-Pain, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross), “All I Do Is Win”
DJ Mustard Playlist
Custom Track: DJ Mustard (feat. RJ), “You Don’t Want It”
J Cole, “Rise and Shine”
Fergie, “L.A. Love (la la)”
Imagine Dragons, “I’m So Sorry”
M.I.A., “Y.A.L.A.”
Custom Track (Instrumental): DJ Mustard, “Ball at Night”
MGK, “Till I Die” (Cavs Version)
Drake, “0 To 100”
Iamsu!, “I Love My Squad”
Santigold, “Disparate Youth”
2K Classics Mixtape:
Gnarls Barkley, “Going On”
Friendly Fires, “Skeleton Boy”
LCD Soundsystem, “Time to Get Away”
Santigold (feat. Spank Rock), “Shove It”
OneRepublic, “Everyone Loves Me”
RJD2, “Clean Living”
ZION I, “Ride”
The Flaming Lips, “The W.A.N.D. (The Will Always Negates Defeat)”
Hogni, “Bow Down (To No Man)”
The Chicharones, “Little By Little”
Around The World:
Rael, “Vejo Depois”
Calvin Harris (feat. John Newman), “Blame”
Zedd (feat. Selena Gomez), “I Want You To Know”
Emicida & FeFe, “Bonjour”
Ana Tijoux, “Vengo”
Major Lazer (feat. MO & DJ Snake), “Lean On”
Club Dogo (feat. Arisa), “Fragili”
AM444, “Lies” (Jay. Soul Truth Remix)
Bag Raiders, “Shooting Stars”
Dynamic Duo & DJ Premier, “Aeao”
PRhyme – Mode (Feat. Logic) CDQ
Here’s the new PRhyme track with Logic that supposedly would be released on the Deluxe edition of the PRhyme album together with Black Thought and MF Doom, now it’s released for the soundtrack of the movie Southpaw! Enjoy:
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DJ Premier, DJ Mustard & DJ Khaled on The NBA 2K16 Soundtrack
2K today announced that NBA 2K16, the newest iteration of the top-rated video game simulation series for the last 15 years*, will feature the most extensive soundtrack in NBA 2K history with three genre-defining collaborators at the helm – legendary hip-hop producer DJ Premier, renowned producer DJ Khaled, and rap/pop producer DJ Mustard. As one of the most successful entertainment properties of the last decade, NBA 2K16’s partnership brings together their unique creative direction in curating more than 50 tracks and contributing a total of six new exclusive tracks to this year’s title.
“I am excited to be a part of the ongoing series of NBA 2K. As a sports fan, it was already fun before the work began. NBA 2K16 will be another big hit, especially alongside DJ Mustard and DJ Khaled bringing our different musical styles to the game.” – DJ Premier
“I am honored to collaborate with NBA 2K, which is such a distinguished brand and one of my favorite video games. Basketball and music are two of my favorite things, and I’m excited to light up the soundtrack with my signature sound. Expect the hottest tracks and of course hit music when you press the start button on NBA 2K16! We The Best! Who?!!! NBA 2K16 that’s who!!!!” – DJ Khaled
“It’s an honor and a blessing to be part of the NBA 2K musical family alongside legends like Pharrell, Jay Z, DJ Premier and DJ Khaled.” – DJ Mustard
NBA 2K16 will be available for PlayStation®4 system and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox One and Xbox 360; and Windows PC platforms on September 29, 2015.
