Yo MTV Raps: D&D Studios

Yo MTV Raps was a show that screened from the late 80's to early/mid 90's and was hosted by hip-hop legend Fab Five Freddy. Freddy was the man responsible for the Andy Warhol soup cans whole car in StyleWars, and can also be seen painting in Blondie's 1981 tribute to hip-hop "Rapture".
More to the point, this post is about an early 90's interview with the Gangstarr Foundation ( i'm guessing early '93, Freddy throws to a new video from Snoop Dogg called Gin and Juice). The Gangstarr Foundation consisted of Guru and Premier (Gangstarr), Jeru the Damaja, Group Home (Malachi the Nutcracker and Lil Dap), Big Shug and several others at varying points in time.
Now you already know that posters of DJ Premier adorn the walls of the RoyalRundown offices, his incredible breadth and depth of work has been keeping real heads nodding for the better part of twenty years. But what you mightn't know is that i've often found his choice of MC somewhat mundane. Now i'm not talkin' about those one off heaters he laced your favourite mc with. No, i'm talkin about those phenomal audio experiances that he produced with Gangstarr, Group Home, Jeru and the NYG'z. The production on these releases is always cited as quintesentially his finest work but more often than not, the standard of rapping could only be referred to as dull.
Between Guru's "mono-tone style", Jeru's "devil hatin" and Group Home's, er, um, just being Group Home, i've wonderd wether it might have been Preemo's skills behind the boards that kept people listening. Honestly, has any one ever said, " Fuck, Lil Dap killed that livin proof shit". The answer is invariably NO. When Group Home's amazing 1996 album Livin Proof does come up in conversation its generally in regards to the quality of the production, thus why i believe none of these rappers have had even moderate success after exiting Premier's sphere.
So, anyway, while we kick back with our figers crossed and hope that this Blaq Poet LP thats set to drop in a week or two is everything its been shaping up to be, lets just enjoy this great bit of footage from a much simpler and less critical (ha ha) time.

PS- Isn't it great to see that even 16 years ago Preemo could waffle on with the best of them. Seriously, the guy could talk a glass eye to sleep. Enjoy!

D&D Studios with Fab Five Freddy.


Part 2.