DJ Premier's DJ Premiere: Hip Hop 50 Volume 1 has arrived. The project is the first installment in Mass Appeal's The Soundtrack Series, which celebrates 50 years of Hip-Hop, and will include a total of 10 EPs curated by Swizz Beatz, Mustard, The-Dream, Mike Will Made-It, No I.D., Hit-Boy, and others.
Premier's installment, which he produced entirely, features Run the Jewels and Joey Bad A$$ as well as collaborations between Slick Rick and Lil Wayne and Remy Ma and Rapsody. In an interview with Uproxx, Premier talked about contributing to the Mass Appeal series after a conversation with Nas, who made a coveted reconnection with Preemo on the track "Beat Breaks."
“When Nas says, ‘Hey, man, I want you to be a part of something,’ obviously you don’t really want to say no,” Premier said. “In my whole career, I’ve never done an EP. And then Nas said, ‘You get a record from me.’ …. The ‘Theme From the Planets’ is one of my favorites out of all the ultimate breaks and beats and that’s the reason why I shout it out. When I told him, ‘Let me do a quick chop of it on my Serato’ just so I could just figure out an idea of reworking that song, he fell in love with it right off rip. He said it reminded him of the park jams.”
Premier previously said he was honored to kick off the Hip Hop 50 music program with Mass Appeal. “Hip-Hop continues to inspire fans across the globe and it’s incredible to think of what the next 50 years will bring."