Ampere is proud to present the one and only DJ Premier, back in Belgium after his last gig 2 years ago. Supported by DJ Grazzhopppa and Boomslang.
Christopher Edward Martin, better known by his stage name DJ Premier, is an American record producer and DJ, and was half of the hip hop duo Gang Starr—alongside the emcee Guru—and forms half of the hip hop duo PRhyme, together with Royce Da 5’9″.
Premier is known for producing all of Gang Starr’s songs as well as many of those composed by the Gang Starr Foundation, AZ, Common, D’Angelo, Fat Joe, Game, KRS-One, Mos Def, Nas, Rakim, Royce da 5’9″, Snoop Dogg, The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Kanye West, Immortal Technique, Xzibit, Limp Bizkit and Busta Rhymes among many others.
DJ Premier’s style of production epitomizes the New York sound of his earlier peers. He is known for sampling jazz, funk, and soul artists, as well as sampling an artist’s past work when creating a new track for that same artist. For example, on Jay-Z’s “So Ghetto”, from the 1999 album Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter, Premier samples an older Jay-Z song, 1997’s “Who You Wit II”. In addition, his encyclopedic memory of hip-hop lyrics allows him to distinctively speak with his hands by scratching in lyrics from several different songs to construct new phrases. Premier’s beats are known for his oft-imitated combinations of short vocal samples, often from multiple artists, to create a chorus. Premier has also experimented with atonal samples that are not confined to soul, jazz, and funk. For example, he sampled and chopped up seminal electro-acoustic music from the 1960s on the track “Physical Stamina” by Jeru the Damaja.
In an interview with XXL Magazine, DJ Premier was asked how his sound evolved, to which he replied:
“Marley Marl is my number-one inspiration. Jam Master Jay, Mix Master Ice, and UTFO. Grandmaster D, and Whodini. DJ Cheese, Grandmaster Flash, Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa. Jazzy Jay—even Cut Creator. Seeing them do what they do. It’s black music, it’s black culture, it comes from the ghetto. How can you not relate to ghetto people when that’s the rawest form of blackness? Even though it’s not a good place in regards to the economy and how bad people have it in the neighborhood, the realism’s there, and that’s what we were born out of. So I very much pay respect by doing the same type of music in return.”
You can still catch him hosting a weekly two-hour show, Live From HeadQCourterz, on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Hip-Hop Nation every Friday.
Support by:
DJ GRAZZHOPPA (Cheebawax, 9MM Records)
DJ Grazzhoppa got infected in 1984 with a severe case of that hiphop virus that was going around! After winning several local DJ battles he took the title of European DMC Champion in 1991 and in 1998 he became Belgian Champion ITF and took the 3rd place in the ITF World Championships. In 2015, he can look back at a career with more than 100 official releases, numerous mixtapes and collabs, involvement in projects such as the development of a Rodec-made turntable scratchmixer and of course being on stage at parties and festivals such as Lowlands, Jazz Middelheim, Roskilde and many more.
Boomslang is a producer/DJ currently living in Ghent, Belgium. He is a regular at popular venues like Charlatan and the newly founded Niche Club. Next to that he is a resident of the infamous Shuttle nights in Leuven, and plays at forward thinking events all over the country. He also hosts a bi-weekly radio show on Urgent.fm, playing only the freshest electronic and urban sounds. Only last month he also performed in Ampere together with LEFTO, and you can expect to see him here more often!
He is also the co-founder of Coastin’, promoting innovative urban music brought by international acts like Evil Needle, Phazz, Fwdslxsh, Jarreau Vandal & many more!