Pete Rock is set to return with the third chapter in his PeteStrumentals series.
It’s been five years since Pete Rock released his second instrumental tape, PeteStrumentals 2, and 19 years since the original. On Monday, the legendary producer shared the video for “Say it Again,” the first single from the series’ third installment. The video follows a young and current-day Pete, the former getting his hands on a record player, and the later taking a trip to the Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.
For this round of PeteStrumentals, Pete assembled an award-winning band: Grammy-winning drummer Daru Jones–who’s played alongside Jack White, Talib Kweli, and Black Milk–guitarist Marcus Machado, bassists MonoNeon and Christopher McBride are joined by vocalist Jermaine Holmes.
“A lot of this album sounds like samples extracted from records,” he explained in a statement. “We dress it up and add definition to what it is. It’s hip-hop, but have you ever heard Pete Rock not sample anything or work with a band? It’s exciting.”
“I wanted to keep the same feeling that people got with the first PeteStrumentals,” he continued. “Even if I’m not sampling, I want the best. I’m like James Brown and Kool & the Gang, I want precision.”
With musicians who’ve played alongside legends like Prince, A Tribe Called Quest, and D’Angelo, Pete Rock sees a great opportunity. “This is something that I’ve always wanted to do,” he admitted, “being an avid digger of albums and 45s, I now have a band to study and reinterpret these records. Presenting this to the world is so fulfilling.”