[We’re bumping this post up because we’ve received some input from a person you’d probably trust more than us when it comes to dope production — and that person is Toronto-born and Brooklyn-based producer Marco Polo, whose debut album Port Authority is in stores now, on Soulspazm/Rawkus. For more on Marco, check out his MySpace, and Lethal’s interview with him from March.]
On Common’s “The People”, one of his teaser singles off of Finding Forever, the Chi-town MC mentions that he has found “the new Primo” — no doubt referencing the track’s producer, one Kanye West. Noz of XXL/Cocaine Blunts fame, attacked this statement a while back, and though I agree that Kanye is not “the new Primo”, I’ll avoid jumping into that debate. What grabs my attention is the fact that, apparently, someone feels it necessary to label someone else as “the new Primo.”
Of course, this lyric certainly wasn’t intended as a diss to DJ Premier, what with Preem having worked with Common in the past, not to mention providing the cuts to Finding Forever‘s other teaser single, “The Game”. But, granted, “Works of Mart” just aren’t dropping like they were back in 199_ (fill in the blank). Gang Starr appears to be on permanent vacation, Jeru The Damaja and Group Home have long since severed their ties with Preem (and, not coincidentally, disappeared off the face of the planet), and the “usual suspects” for an occasional DJ Premier collabo (i.e. Jay-Z, Nas, M.O.P.) have all seemingly moved on to “greener pastures” and, sadly, appear to not need him anymore. [Or, perhaps Preem is just living comfortably off that Christina Aguilera paper.]
Whatever the case, if hip hop and/or Common feels the need to anoint a “new” Primo, then we might as well pay homage to the (so-called) “old” Primo, whose productions still sound as fresh today as they did when they first came out. When you elevate yourself as a producer to become the personification of the sound of an entire region of hip hop music (New York), during arguably it’s greatest years (mid ’90s), and you’re not even from that region (Preem’s originally from Houston), you are officially the shit. Take a bow.
The tat on DJ Premier’s arm reads “Reputation is the cornerstone of power” — here are the tracks that myself, Lethal, Marco Polo and friend-of-ML Kold Shadow hold as defining that reputation…
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