Top 50 DJ Premier Quotes

Black men, we’re known for getting into some drama with other black men, specifically black-on-black crime. We’re used to the confrontational attitude.

I’m a big rock ‘n’ roll head, I love country music, I love yodeling music. But I’m still black and funky.

I listen to my early Gang Starr interviews, I’m like, damn I was really trying to sound like a New Yorker then.

Jazz came from the streets, hip-hop came from the streets. It’s just a different language. It’s all borne out of hard times, struggle, and the fight to have equality and things be better.

Everybody deserves a piece of where they live, in some type of fashion. Music is just my way of preserving that.

I’m a country boy.

I’ve been listening to Herbie Hancock forever. He’s gone through so many transitions, even before bringing hip-hop to the forefront with ‘Rockit’ and everything.

If I gotta do a Jay-Z beat I want to stop everything. Tell everybody hold my calls, everything.

The great thing was that both K-Ci and JoJo told me to not make an R&B track that was reminiscent of radio hit records. ‘Make a Gang Starr track and we’ll write our lyrics to that,’ they told me. They couldn’t stress it enough.

I’m all about competition; still am to this day. That’s how you should be, but not with any malice. From Mike Will Made It to Boi-1da to Mike Zombie, I’m out to get ’em all and it’s that friendly competition that keeps us all on our toes.

I’m known for taking a long time getting music out, partially, my schedule is bananas, I’m only human, and then on top of that, I’m a one-man-producer.

Bad Name’ is just that head-nod, traditional loop over a breakbeat, chopped up, and it sounds like the way I do my thing.

You have to know who you’re making music for.

When I was 19 I had a record deal.

I’ve done some scoring in the past, but I want to get into it on a bigger level – a Danny Elfman level.

Well, I’ve always held down Guru… His spirit knows this.

I don’t have session players come in and guitars, I’m doing the drums, I’m doing the scratching, I’m doing every sound you hear and that’s always been my way. And not only that, I’m very meticulous about it just sounding right.

I’m passionate about music in general, not just hip-hop. But when it comes to hip-hop, I don’t wanna see it die culturally.

I know what a Gang Starr album that’s done is supposed to sound like.

I’m a very humble guy, but of course I think I’m dope.

I’m cool with Dr. Dre, I have his phone number, and he picks up when I call.

Actually, for ‘Family & Loyalty’ I wanted Drake on the track but he was about to go on tour for his Scorpion album, so timewise it wasn’t going to work.

Guru always titled the Gang Starr albums. But once it came to ‘Hard to Earn,’ he wanted me to title it.

I would always have turntable elements in my records even if it was just one scratch.

A lot of Friday nights, Guru and I would go kick it with Biggie, since he was just three blocks down from us.

When you have a deep focus, you can’t go wrong at all. Not when you’re an expert at what you do.

My mom’s an art teacher, so I always had music in the house. She always had records, and I was mesmerized by the mechanics of how a turntable works.

I like soul, I like rock, I like new wave, I like punk music, I like blues, I like jazz, and I was brought up on all of them from a young boy all the way to my teenage years, when I was wild and crazy, in college.

Guru died tragically and there were so many rumors about how he went out. I got to see him in the hospital right before he passed, and one of the last things I said to him before I walked out of the room was that I was going to make sure that his family was straight.

The radio stations strayed away from the raw hip-hop that they were playing in the early 1990s. We were like, ‘All this watered down stuff is dominating the airwaves. We should make a record to make fun of that’ and Guru’s like, ‘Let’s call it ‘Mass Appeal.”

I say if you don’t write your lyrics, then you can’t be the best rapper alive. Not at all. You can be one of the best artists, especially in rap, you gotta write everything yourself.

I don’t shop beats. That was never my method coming up. I think it’s very strange to have a CD of 30 or 40 beats and then just pick one.

Jay Z and Biggie and Nas always listened to my direction. They listened and they applied it and I also listened to their opinions and that’s why the records came out so good.

If you don’t have any Coltrane, ‘A Love Supreme’ will do it for you. It will explain everything. Even if you don’t get it, it will still explain everything. That’s how deep it is.

Everything I do is in a New York state of mind. I’m indebted to preserving the sound of the city.

And hip-hop is about style and finesse and being creative and different, and to do that you have to be ballsy enough to not do what everybody else does.

I use whatever it takes to make the tracks identify what me and Guru are all about.

If I feel like something needs to be updated, I’ll break my neck to outdo the original.

I’ve never sampled just one artist, I’m known for my reputation and my creativity.

I’m not a tough guy, but I’ll throw down just like the rest of them if I have to.

Yeah, Travis Scott’s dad taught me how to ride minibikes and how to repair the engines. His name’s Jack Webster. Jack had a drum set and his brother had a bass. So I used to play with them, and that’s what started me wanting to get into music and take it serious. And this is before rap.

I like when people don’t think I can pull things off.

The majority of my life is spent doing nothing but godly things, especially when it comes to dealing with other people.

I used to lie about my age at first because you always want to be 18, but then you start looking at it and you’re 40, and the money’s still coming. And you’re like, ‘Man, who cares about that?’

When I miss Guru, I bump one of our records. Then I shed a tear and get back to work.

I love heavy metal, Metallica. I’m into Jefferson Starship and acid rock.

I’m from the pre-Pro Tools era where you had to meet up with the artist and go over things if you wanted to record a track.

From Jay-Z to Nas to Kanye to whoever, I’m just not the type to say, ‘Hey, let me get on your album.’ If they want me, they’re going to reach out and say, ‘I need a joint from you.’

I think the fact that Gang Starr kept getting more and more successful was the reason we never thought about our age.

The Nike joint ‘Classic’ with Kanye, Nas, KRS-One, that was a remix – Rick Rubin did the original, and his was a double-time tempo; mine was a regular boom-bap tempo, and they liked it so much that we ended up doing the video to it.