Unique and powerful chemistry between a legendary producer and fierce rapper makes PRhyme a one of a kind collaboration. There never will be enough of their music.
DJ Premier explained in his recent interview how he and Royce came together to work on it and how the name was born. Actually, Preemo had been working with Royce da 5’9 on and off for about 12 years. But at some point, the circumstances offered an opportunity that was restrictive and liberating at the same time:
Mike had pitched this idea when working on Slaughterhouse, but it was taking so long to get all that process done. Mike was handling Adrian Younge at the time on the side. He was like, “How about y’all do a project, like a quick EP where you use Adrian Younge’s sound only. You can’t sample no other records, just Adrian Younge’s music. And make a quick EP of Slaughterhouse”. I was very against it. I was like, “Nah, I like to dig and make beats through digging”. Even though I liked Black Dynamite. Mike was leaning on me about, everybody’s leaning on me about it, and then it went silent. Time passed, Royce hits me again and goes, “What if me and you did it?”
Royce was just being over getting sober and had not rapped a long time. And for me, knowing the not sober Royce, his bars, his delivery is always on point… I’m glad he’s sober because the most cleanest and healthy lifestyle is the best. That does not mean that you gonna still pull off the Royce that we all know and love.
DJ Premier had his doubts about Royce being able to meet the bar he had set for himself earlier. So, when Royce sent in his first track, Preemo was ready for the worst:
I was like, let me listen to it now. It’s either him sounding Royce, or I’m gonna tell him falling off. The song “PRhyme” is what he sent. As soon as I turned it on, I’m like, he’s back! And I listened to the rest of it, I’m like, he sounds like when he drinks, but he’s sober! I called him, “Dude, you’re back! You’re back! That’s the Royce I was hoping to hear! Let’s get this album cracking!”
Royce stays up in so many different hours. He’ll call you at all different types of hours of the day. He’ll stay up for five days straight, not sleep, just be recording. He’s like a Kanye in that regard. Right before I get to the airport, he goes, “Yo, how about we call ourselves a name, like a group? Instead of being DJ Premier and Royce da 5’9” I was like, you got a name?’ He’s like. “How about we call ourselves PRhyme?’ P and R is capital, P is for Premier and R is for Royce and “hyme” just encompasses everything of hip hop together. I was like, I like that. We started coming up with logos. He was like, “Yo, Eminem’s art guy is really good. Can we use Eminem’s art guy to do something?” He showed me PRhyme logo and I liked it. And he said, “From now on, we are Prhyme!” That’s how it was, it was birth.
That was the beginning of the story that has added two remarkable records to hip hop history. So far. Because Preemo and Royce are cooking again.
For PRhyme 2, we were going to use Adrian again, but we didn’t have enough catalogue to take it where I wanted to take it. So, I was like, maybe we should just change it and make it a different person every time. That makes it even more special. Antman Wonder was the next one that Mike was dealing with, and we got with him for PRhyme 2. PRhyme 3 is a doozy. That’s all I can say. That one we are not going to announce until it’s done. But you are definitely going to be like, “Oh, shit, okay!”
Watch the video below:
