There is a lot of anticipation for DJ Premier’s first compilation album dropping next month, but the excitement may pale in comparison to that for his collaboration with Pete Rock. The album was announced by the Number 1 Soul Brother this summer via Twitter, and is slated to come out in 2011. The idea behind the album, which will be billed as DJ Premier vs. Pete Rock, is to have each producer record their half of the 12 song album keeping their guests a secret.
Beats, Boxing & Mayhem caught up with the legendary Gang Starr beatsmith and got some details about the project.
“The Pete Rock project, we just started that last week,” Premo said, who is also being tapped for Watch The Throne. “To finish the compilation album I had to put that on the back burner. I addressed that with the artists I got on there. Pete’s not supposed to tell me who he got, and I’m not supposed to say who I got. I got four already, I just need to get two more. We’re doing six songs each and then we’re ready to go.”
The Texas-born producer has already broken the rules though. “Pete came to my studio and laid one of them with one of the artistes. I took sneak listen and the shit sounds hot. He doesn’t even know I heard it, but that’s what he gets for doing a session in my studio.”
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“It is a competition, but a fun one of course,” Premier continued. “The lineup I got is Illmatic! People are going to go crazy on this shit. I’m going to be done with that hopefully by the end of December. We feel that people are going to buy it just on the strength. So when you hear the artists that we got for the battle, it’s going to be so much fun. It’s rare artists in the industry where everyone is going to be like ‘oh shit, how’d you get with him?’ I have to come up with two more.”
Prem did reveal one of his guests. “I’ll tell you one that I got…The GZA, Me and GZA? Oh my God. That’s the only one I’ll tell you.” Exciting news for Premier and Wu-Tang fans alike, as the two veterans have never hit the studio together. GZA has appeared over a Premier production before, but it was a remix of Afu-Ra’s “Bigacts, Littleacts” in 2001. The Genius had already laid his vocals over True Master’s album version of the song.
