While DJ Premier is working with the usual suspects on his upcoming compilationGet Used To Us, he is looking to branch out with some newcomers in the future.
“I saw Drake at the Yankee Stadium [concert with Jay-Z and Eminem for their Home & Home Tour] and he [was] just like bowing and all that,” Premier told XXL. “I’m like, ‘Nah you ain’t gotta do that, man.’ And he’s like, ‘Dude, I wanna work with you.’ And I was like, ‘Dude, I wanna work with you.’”
The Texas native may not share a lot of fans or styles with the Toronto artist, but you can count him as a fan. “He brought lyricism back. For a 22-year-old man, he brought lyricism back. When [Gang Starr’s] Step In The Arena came out, I was 22-years-old. And I just thought about it, I was like, Damn, I was a youngster. I wasn’t 30, 31. I was 22 and coming with heat. And that’s why I like that he’s bringing stuff back.”
Drake wasn’t the only young emcee to catch Premo’s ear and gain his respect. “J. Cole, I like that he’s bringing lyrics back,” he said of the Roc Nation emcee/producer. “Everything doesn’t have to be super, over-lyrical, but we do pride ourselves on cats that can spit, because [rap music] was always a competition about who got the dopest rhymes.”
