The new Gang Starr track will be featured on the instrumental version of One of the Best Yet.
It’s been a year since DJ Premier released One of the Best Yet — the seventh and final Gang Starr album. The album, which featured old, lost Guru verses over new Premier beats, was well received by critics and fans alike.
Now Premier is getting ready to release the instrumental version of One of the Best Yet. The album, which will be released on all DSPs at midnight on December 11th, will feature an extra goodie — a new Gang Starr track.
The song is called “Glowing Mic” and it was premiered by Rolling Stone. The song features a verse Guru used on a song called “Mr. Gang Starr.” DJ Premier told Rolling Stone that he made the beat for the track around the hook. Speaking about how he came up with the title “Glowing Mic,” Premier said:
“Since the song ‘Mr. Gang Starr’ was previously released after we hadn’t worked together in so long, I noticed the multitrack session said ‘Mr. Gang Starr (Original Version)… The lyrics and the hook are totally different so I gravitated to it and I didn’t want to use the same title and confuse people. My search for scratch ideas landed me across a song I produced for Torae, ‘For the Record’ in 2011. The line says ‘I destroy the mic for my glow.’ Instantly ‘Glowing Mic’ became the title simply from hearing that line.”
It has also just been announced that Premier will be part of a supergroup with Black Thought and Elvis Costello.
Speaking about the group, called Dopamine, Black Thought said:
“It’s weird how the songs come to be. Essentially live instrumentation, Premier is right there and he sorta takes it and chops it up.”
Check out “Glowing Mic” below.