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Another long day has
winded down in the studio. DJ Premier shuffles his way thru Dr.Dre's
studio in a very swift manner. The man looks beat, the expression on
his face seem to point to lack of sleep and rest.
Premier brings a
handful of DATs and zip drives to Mel-Man and Dr. Dre. "Damn you
some picky Cali niggas aren't ya?" exclaims Premier, as he hands
over his precious demos. Mel-Man and Dre's eye's gleam with delight,
as they put the DATs in the machine and start to examine the latest
Work of Mart.
For about 30 seconds
Dre's head is in constant movement, jerking up and down in unison with
the beat. Dre and Mel-Man look at each other, and give an almost
silent agreement. Mel-Man tells Primo "Yo we dig the
Funkadelic chop you did, but we gonna get Scott and em to redo the
bassline. Is that cool ma'man?". Primo replies "No question, I
trust you and Dre. Ya'll my niggas.", as he dips into another bag
he brought over.
Dre takes a closer
look and to his surprise, Primo dishes out about 10 old rare grooves
and latin jazz records. As Premier and Dre go over the old collection,
they talk and laugh as if they were old friends who have never left
each other's side. Dre states "Me and Primo have an odd history
together.
My nigga DOC used to
stay up near Austin, at about that time Primo started sending out
demos from his old dorm room in Texas. Me, Cube and Yella traveled
down to Texas to see DOC, but instead we ran into Primo slanging
mixtapes at Texas A&M." Primo chimes in "Man that was
garbage back then. I was just struggling to pay for some books and
having something so a nigga could eat. Dre was cool and shit, we
exchanged numbers gave daps and went on our own ways.
I didn't run into Dre
until him and Snoop were in New York around 92-93. He came by
the D&D Studios and at that time me and Eddie Sancho were helping
DJ Evil Dee engineer a couple tracks for the upcoming Black Moon
album. Dre played us The Chronic and it was a reality check for me. I
trashed alot of the beats I was doing at the time, which would have
been for me and Guru's album Daily Operation."
As Dre takes a sip of
some coffee, Primo adds "Me and Dre, we opposites but we bring
each other up, he inspired me to pick up the bass guitar and some live
drum basics while he's starting to fuck with the the SP. "The
SP1200, an ancient relic of hip hop production, a tool which has been
championed by Buckwild, Pete Rock, Large Professor and Evil Dee, is
now being put to use by Dre. "Cats forget I used to do the
grimey, James Brown sampled shit." Dre exclaims, he goes on and
says" The two joints imma lace Rakim with and the one im trying
do with ma' man Primo, is just a reminder to niggas as to serve a
reminder of how I started sound wise in the game."
Dre then surprises me
with an impromptu playing of "Cruel World", a straight from the
gutter, no frills approach on the fate of man kind guest starring Ras
Kass and Xzibit. Dre time stretches a sped up, nearly unrecognizable
Donald Byrd sample. Im treated to three vibrant layers of various
drums that have been EQ' ed, filtered and tweaked out, Primo comes to
my side and whispers in a chuckling voice, "I loaned Dre a Roy
Ayers live bootleg record I copped in Germany. He owes me for them
drums kid." Other producers in line for "Oh My God" are
Kayne West, Alchemist, Fred Wreck and Ayatollah. "Oh My God"
is slated for a late November release date on Aftermath Records.
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