A nucca like me grew up on DJ Premier beats. I was growing up during that hip-hop era where if your album didn’t have a Preemo beat on it then you didn’t have a real hip-hop album. And keeping it 100, I still feel the same way. I’m old school like that. You can look at his body of work and argue that the man is the most important producer in hip-hop history bar Dr. Dre (Even though Premo contributed to more classic albums than Dre has).

While Jay can argue that Just Blaze is the new Premier all he wants, the truth of the matter is that there’s only one Premier and despite popular belief, the man never fell off. His production is just as deadly today as it was when he was passing Smooth that Buddha sack.

Word to everything, Premo’s production on Time 4 Change is gonna have chiropractors surviving this recession. Those drums he used throughout this T4C are so potent that this mixtape should’ve came with neckbraces. Those bells on Big Shug’s “When I Strike” had me with my grill scrunched up ready to lay someone out.

The horns he looped on Termanology’s “Hold That” were extremely sick. The “half spic/half white” MC got it in over those horns too. The kid is nice.

But the sickest verse on this mixtape goes to my nucca Jadakiss off of “For The City” where son said, “Bullets, gunsmoke and cocaine residue /leave me the fuck alone that’s what you better do/funerals stay on schedule /I don’t even care about the charges if they ain’t federal/get a call home, something happen/big chrome clappin’/way before ringtone rappin’/left holmes with half his dome in a napkin/for sayin’ what’s poppin’? when he asked him what’s crackin’?/the OG’s is getting money and relaxin’/some niggas is frontin’, some is lookin’ for action/but it’s not the season, can’t stop the heathen/wearing all this tight shit to stop the bleeding…” That for sayin’ “what’s poppin’? when he asked him what’s crackin’?” line had me open like ass cheeks on a Kardashian. Only heads that really be in the hood knows what Jada meant by that. I was loving it, man.

For them true hip-hop heads who tired of listening to the latest Neptune crap on the radio, just off production alone I’d recommend this mixtape. Not to mention all the cutting and scratching Preem did to give this the authentic mixtape sound,

Naturally this mixtape has a political undercurrent, but that’s just to wake more people up from being slaves to the system. Like Premier said, “Everywhere I go across the world people fight for their rights. Here in America muthafuckas is pussy!!” Word. -The Infamous O

Hottest Joint: For The City – Statik Selektah feat. M.O.P. & Jadakiss

Weakest Joint: NONE

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