Rap Beats Producer DJ Premier

DJ Premier is one of the best producers in the history of hip hop music. The Source magazine along with about.com each voted him the number producer of all time. Chris Martin was born in Brooklyn, New York but also spent time in Houston, Texas while he was growing up. He attended school at Prairie View A&M outside of Houston and studied computer science. As a young DJ he was known as “Waxmaster C” and along with managing record store could play a variety of different instruments. Since the 90’s there have been no more then three producers that could test the skills of DJ Premiers status including Dr. Dre, Prince Paul and RZA. He has produced “New York State of Mind” for Nas “Ten Crack Commandments” for the Notorious B.I.G. along with several other songs by top artists. His most known production work is with Gangstarr, he produced nearly every single song that they had.

The thing that set DJ Premier apart from all the other DJ’s at the time was the fact that he combined the small vocal portions from multiple artists to make one hook on a track. His name represents being the first and that is what he wanted to be the first and best in his style of producing beats. He had a scratched chorus and two-bar break that made up the rhythms of his tracks. He also began to use ominous atonal samples on the work he did with Jeru’s “The Sun Rises In The East” album in 1994. Another interesting thing he does is for the clean albums that he releases, he personally edits out any language and fills it with a sound effect to make it more enjoyable to listen to.

DJ Premier isn’t finished producing beats, he currently owns two record label. Founded in 2002 Year-Round Records has released numerous mixtapes along with singles for the NYG’z along with Blaq Poet.