Shortly after unveiling “Yankee & The Brave,” Killer Mike and El-P of Run The Jewels are back with another taste of Run The Jewels 4 in the form of “Ooh LA LA” featuring Greg Nice and cuts by DJ Premier. The track premiered during an interview with Beats 1 host Zane Lowe on Wednesday (March 25).
Appropriately, it comes with a sample of Gang Starr’s 1994 Hard To Earn single “Dwyck” featuring Nice & Smooth.
“There’s not a lot of classic undermined golden age material that hasn’t been turned into a jam…and I’ve been plotting on this for probably the last three albums,” El-P said. “We don’t intentionally do old school music … But our influences and who we are come from an era that is very real.”
El Producto admitted it was the first time RTJ actually had the budget to clear a sample.
“This is the first time that Run The Jewels had a real budget to clear samples, so look, all I’m saying is that we were able to do that this time,” he said. “When we went into this record I was like, ‘Yo, we’re sampling some…’ I have about three things that are in line and that one right there, you know the pains I went to get that fucking acapella man? That shit is not out there like that.
“And that’s like one of the beautiful things about being in rap. Either you’re a lyricist who caught some shit that someone should have said a long time ago and you’re just praying that your record comes out, because how many times does it happen that you think of some shit, and then one day later someone finally comes out with it.”
As far as working with Preemo and the Nice & Smooth MC, El-P had nothing but good things to say about the collaboration.
“Big shout out to Preemo because he made those whole … happen,” he started. “I mean, we hit him up and so we just want to thank him because he was super generous with it. We hit him up. We were like, ‘We want you to be a part of this. We want you to do the cuts.’
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“For people who don’t know, that’s DJ Premier cutting at the end of it. We were so honored then we had Greg through him we had Greg Nice and Greg Nice loved the record.”
The release date for Run The Jewels 4 is expected to be announced soon.
Until then, check out the “Ooh LA LA” single above.