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In the latest episode of his YouTube series 'So Wassup?,' DJ Premier breaks down the making of his 'Classic (Better Than I've Ever Been)' collab with Kanye West, Nas, Rakim and KRS-One.

DJ Premier Reveals How He Got Kanye West, Nas, Rakim & KRS-One On The Same Song Published on:Apr 25, 2022, 6:58 AM by 0 Nike brought together three generations of rap royalty when they recruited DJ Premier Kanye West Nas Rakimand KRS-Onefor Classic (Better Than Ive Ever Been) to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their beloved Air Force 1 sneaker in 2007. In the latest episode of his YouTube series So Wassup? Premo broke down the backstory behind the all-star collaboration. The legendary producer began by revealing Kanye received a beat CD from Rick Rubinand was tasked with choosing the instrumental that he, Nas, Rakim and KRS-One would rap over. However, after the original version (which didnt feature Rakim due to his verse being a slower tempo) was completed, Premo received a phone call from KRS asking him to do a remix. KRS-One called me and said, Yo, we need a Premier version of this song,' he remembered. I had no ties to it, but when KRS calls, what do you say, no? No. Youre like, Alright, what do you need me to do? He said, The original is done, we even performed it already on MTV. But we still need one to do a video to and we really want to get it a little more not even uptempo, just more of a different type of energy. I said, Alright.' Weeks later, DJ Premier finally received Kanye West, Nas, Rakim and KRS-Ones vocals and got down to work not only on cooking up the bouncy, Carl Douglas-sampling beat, but expertly manipulating Rakims verse to match the tempo of the track. I got Rakims separately on a CD of an acapella of his vocal, but the thing is, 100 BPM, but his was between 97 and 98. If you lined it up with my beat or the original, its not gonna line up; hes gonna be behind lagging and the beats gonna be ahead of him. Cant have that. I know how to time stretch but I was like, I dont really wanna alter Rakims stuff. You dont mess with Rakim! Its a violation. I had a Pioneer CDJ-1000 you could do a thing where its a pitch control where the vocal tone doesnt change. This was before Ableton and all of these new devices When I got Rakims , I sped it up and kept pushing it and pushing it Boom. I had pushed it and when I do his verse, its the last verse. Comes out flawless. You wouldnt even know the difference. Nike loved DJ Premiers remix so much they decided to shoot a music video for it. In addition to shots of legendary Bronx graffiti crew Tats Cruworking on original artwork for the song, the video featured a scene of Premo and Rakim in the studio together, which was a special (and long overdue) moment for the Gang Starr general. To have Rakim come to your studios is already a blessing, he said. Mind you, Ive always wanted to find him because hes like a UFO. When we did the Gang Starr Full Clip album, Rakim appeared on The Militia II with WC and Gang Starr, and I gave all of our plaques out to everybody that was involved with that album when we went gold. Rakim was the only one we couldnt track down to give him his plaque. It had been sitting in my closet at the studio collecting dust. Read more