From NPR’s Bullseye with Jesse Thorn:
The revolutionary hip hop producer Pete Rock grew up in a house full of records, mentally cataloging the songs that excited him. His parents listened to all kinds of music, from jazz to classical to funk. Years later, he would reach back into his brain and record collection to select and transform the perfect sample.
He started out as half of the hip-hop duo Pete Rock and CL Smooth, later going solo and collaborating with and producing for many of the biggest names in rap, from Nas to Kanye West.
Pete Rock joins us to talk about his earliest music memories, meeting James Brown as an elementary-schooler, and how he took a sample from an album called “The Honeysuckle Breeze” and used it to create a classic hip hop track.
Pete Rock’s new album of instrumentals is Petestrumentals 2.
