Pete Rock: one of my inspirations.
Similar to their piece on DJ Premier, Pete Rock sits down with Complex and divulges tales on some of his vintage tracks…
On (in my opinion one of his more unheralded songs) AZ’s “Rather Unique:”
“I met AZ way before Nas. I was working with AZ when we both were nobodies. I met AZ through a friend of mine who was from the Bronx and moved to Mount Vernon right on my mother’s block, and we became real close and used to hang out with each other a lot.
“He knew AZ, and one day he introduced me to him. We were working with him down in my basement, and we used to go out to East New York to look for him and pick him up and bring him back to the house to work with him.
“‘Rather Unique’ was ill because I had it perfected, with the beat ready with all these nice little fill-ins and drum stuff going on. And the assistant engineer stepped on the plug by accident, and I didn’t save it, and I had to re-make it. I had it going better than what you hear now. It was crazy. I had it going really dope before. I just did what I could, but there were certain things I did that I couldn’t remember from when I was programming it. I was mad.”
READ: Pete Rock Tells All: The Stories Behind His Classic Records
