DJ Premier Talks Gang Starr Origins, Working With A$AP Ferg, Christina Aguilera

Long before winning a GRAMMY for producing tracks on Christina Aguilera's fifth studio album Back to Basics and collaborating with some of today's hottest artists, DJ Premier was cutting it up alongside the late Guru in the legendary hip-hop duo Gang Starr. Jumpstarting his producing career circa 1986, Premier takes us back to his musical roots and first piece of equipment. 

While breaking down the intricacies of producing and how he began with an E-mu SP-1200—he coins "the weapon of choice"—to implementing the MPC Renaissance into today's software oriented equipment, Premier dives into the "creative space" relationship he had with Guru. 

"It was around 1992 when I started saying 'you know what? I can definitely produce anyone'," he tells Fuse. "I had already told Guru 'I'll always be in Gang Starr with you, but I want to be able to produce outside the group' he said 'that's fine because I'm going to do other projects that I want to do outside the group as well.'"