Premier ahead of the pack

Premier created his own style by making music that was different from the usual hip-hop.

DJ Premier has seen hip-hop go from ghetto music to a billion-dollar business. Thing is, although he has made some of the most famous beats and sounds in the genre, the DJ and producer from Gang Starr has never cashed in on the music he loves.

Don't get him wrong, the man behind hits by Notorious B.I.G., Nas, Jay-Z and KRS-One, as well as Gang Starr tracks like Soliloquy of Chaos, off the 1992 classic Daily Operation, is doing okay.

Since starting out in 1988, the duo, which also includes rapper Guru, have remained underground because of their refusal to follow any musical or hip-hop trends.

Daily Operation ("That was a monumental time," says Premier), 1991's Step In the Arena, and 2003's The Ownerz, are the best examples of Gang Starr making music on their own terms.

Premier (real name Chris Martin), who plays tonight on the Bugg'n Tour with Method Man and Redman at the Logan Campbell Centre in Auckland, considers himself a pioneer, though he says he won't be telling everybody who will listen, like hip-hop's latest big mouth, Kanye West.

But read on and you will hear that, for someone who "lets the music speak for itself", Premier is pretty vocal about his feats.

"I came out with sounds that didn't sound like the usual hip-hop beat. I took that chance because no one would identify with me if I sound like somebody who's already out.

"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.

"But you borrow other elements to take it to another level of the game, and that's an unwritten rule, no copycatting, but you have to create your own style, and I did that.

"It worked because I've seen it carry me to other stages of my career and, not only that, but I've worked with almost every artist I've dreamed of working with - from Rakim, to KRS 1, to Big Daddy Kane. Not everybody gets to do that. All my idols have been in the studio with me, because they wanted to be there.

"But I'm definitely a pioneer, based on my track record for what I've done for the industry and, on top of that, my passion for making sure the genre continues to live. All of that is real important to my life and my culture."

He takes hip-hop seriously and even to this day, when he is DJing, he is wary of who is coming up to the booth and trying to see what track he is playing.

"Back in the day, DJs used to melt the label off their record so you didn't know what it was. And I'm still that way to a certain degree. That's how it is, it's a competition and it's all word of mouth. This is an underground form of music."

Premier grew up in the ghettos of New York and this is where his love of jazz, funk and soul music originated. The subtle use of jazz in Gang Starr's music is one of the elements that made them so unique and still makes the early 90s albums so timeless.

"But jazz is from the earlier times of the 50s and 60s," says Premier. "That was the ghetto music of that era. The ghetto music of my era is hip-hop.

"And Parliament, and Curtis Mayfield, and Marvin Gaye, that was all the ghetto stuff when I was a baby and then when I was a teenager it was hip-hop and we were taking all those old 70s sounds and recreating them and putting them into a hip-hop format.

"It's got to have that old boom, bap, with that hard snare. It's gotta be hard. And that's how I'm still doing it to this day."

This ghetto background is also why he is staunch about the importance of young people who are into hip-hop knowing about the music's roots.

"I'm older, I'm 38, so I'm from an era where I've seen it from the very beginning. A lot of these kids now will never know what the beginning was like unless they do their research.

"I don't have to do my research because I was there to witness it develop from a hobby, in the ghetto, and now it's a billion-dollar business, and the ghetto doesn't really get any money [from] it," he says.

He is working on fixing that by doing prison tours, putting money into community centres, to "give the youth somewhere to go", and educating kids about the roots of hip-hop.

"Because if they only love the generation that is coming out now, and they didn't have any love for the generation that gave opportunities for hip-hop to last this long, then they're not really fans of it, they are just riding a trend and not taking it very seriously.

"You are going to get a lot of people who are like that, but I don't acknowledge those people, I shut them down and tell them to find something else to love because hip-hop is real serious to me [and] it's a culture that I must see live on for the next 100 years."

He pauses and says dramatically, "We don't never sleep. We sleep when we die." 

Who: DJ Premier (from Gang Starr), playing as part of The Bugg'n Tour with Method Man, Redman, DJ Kool, Rahzel, DJ JS-1, DJ Logikal, Frontline and Deceptikonz

Where & when: Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland, tonight (note venue change)

Essential albums: Step In the Arena (1991); Daily Operation (1992); The Ownerz (2003)