Rolling Stone caught up with MC, DJ, producer and former Main Source frontman Large Professor the day after his 51st birthday to talk about his upcoming projects, digital music and new artists.

“We got Ghostface Killah and Freddie Gibbs,” he said of his upcoming album. “We doing a lot of bridging of the southern and east coast artists, but it’s all Boom Bap, it’s all relentless ill, Boom Bap. I dropped a project a year or so ago with my man Neek The Exotic called Extra Exotic, and right now I'm working on a compilation album [with] a lot of new and up and coming artists that I like, like Stahr from Atlanta. She's kind of fire. I got some joints with my man Al Skratch. So I got the new and the old, the whole spectrum of Hip-Hop."

Large Professor told Rock The Bells last year that he's also working on an instrumental compilation. "The skateboard community, they listen to just instrumentals and the online community of MCs are just lookin' for beats," he said. "I'm also working on a few new compilations. I've been collaborating with ED OG a lot lately, so I have some things coming."

When asked about artificial intelligence and software programs that can identify samples, Extra P seemed somewhat unphased. "I mean, it’s cool. I like it because it makes us sharper," he explained. "I come from the original era where records were rare. Now, I don’t know if artificial intelligence even has these records, so a lot of these choices is so under the radar that they really just trying to catch up. What they need to do is join with us and let us tell them what to do with this artificial intelligence, just how De La just got their stuff online. It’s like, yo, work with us, and I guarantee they’ll be lit. You know what I mean?"

He also stressed that the new generation is bored with cloud technology and embracing a more hands-on approach to music. "For the new generation, the cloud is kind of boring," he said. "They want to be able to touch the music, spin it back, throw it in, and things like that. So it has never been important to me to get digital. I always prioritized vinyl because it goes hand in hand with skateboarders. How the skateboarders take risks, they flip and jump. It’s like when you listen to music; you can touch the vinyl and spin it back and take a risk to throw it on time and things like that. So it’s just making the world fun again."