PRhyme 2 Is Coming Soon & The First Single Signals A New Era (Audio)

In late 2014, DJ Premier and Royce 5’9 released PRhyme, an album that challenged all others that year as one of the best. Preemo launched his first group since Gang Starr, and Nickel Nine extended his exceptional collaborative stride that began with Slaughterhouse and Bad Meets Evil. The tandem used sounds created by Los Angeles-based producer/musician Adrian Younge, known for his work with Ghostface Killah, RZA, and Souls Of Mischief. The eponymous independent project then received one of the most exciting deluxe edition re-releases, thanks to additional tracks featuring appearances by DOOM, Black Thought, Joey Bada$$, Logic, and Phonte.

PRhyme has been mostly quiet since 2015, but Heads knew all along that the chemistry was bubbling towards a new experiment. Today, Hip-Hop learns that PRhyme 2 is indeed coming soon—March 16 to be exact. Philadelphia’s AntMan Wonder is now the one creating the building blocks for DJ Premier’s towering sculptures of sound. Right away, listeners will hear a difference.

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The first listen to PRhyme 2 shows this progression. “Era,” featuring Dave East, sounds like no Preemo beat Heads have heard before. Like “Just To Get A Rep” was Gang Starr’s forward-sounding street tale back in 1990, this comes as post-apocalyptic boom-bap. The chorus of “sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in the wrong f*cking era” resonates with this sound, as the MCs wish to live in a time when lyricism reigned in the eyes of the Rap community.

Royce spits pure fire. The Motown MC closes his verse with: “F*ck you your national anthem, that sh*t don’t concern me / ‘Cause it’s your country, I’m smoking Montecristo / Discussing bitcoin and cryptocurrency / That’s probably why white people stay connected / My people stay corrected, white people stay protected / From the same dangers in life that my people stay subjected / The USA got a race obsession, hatred / I hope you know that’s why I race my possessions / I treat my Porsche like Oprah, and my Wraith like Stedman.” The MC half of PRhyme gets political, while delivering some of his most cutting wordplay at the same time.

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It is the song’s Harlem guest who opens the track. Just as Royce name-checks popular rappers of this era, East does the reverse. “Back room, project buildin’ with eight ni**as talkin’ / BAPE shop in Japan, had a dream J Dilla called me / I paid attention to The Fugees and I killed ’em softly / All white, feelin’ Godly, I’m cloud-steppin’, don’t bother / I take offense to disrespect over who lyrical / Triple threat, every move I’m makin’, all pivotal.

This is Preemo’s second noteworthy collab’ with a Harlem MC. Last year, he released the “Our Streets” video single with A$AP Ferg.