he Large Professor is from Flushing, Queens. He started making beats on his friends' equipment while in high school. His sound wound its way through Queens' grapevine, catching the ear of Eric B, himself an Elmhurst native. While most his age were spending their time dry-humping and making cheat-sheets, Large Professor was providing the percussion for Rakim Allah.

A list of his catalogue can put a smile on the face of any fan of New York City hip hop. Maybe that's why he does it for us on his solo debut, First Class: "..Live at the Barbecue, Fakin the Funk, Snake eyes, Watch Roger, The Heist, It's a Boy (Remix), Wanted: Dead of Alive, Bullshit, The Ghetto, Resurrection (Remix), Rap Professional, Halftime, Money in the Bank, Rewind."

After years of anticipation and setbacks, Large Professor has finally released his album on Matador. He says: "We try not to play the industry's game, we want the industry to play our game." Large Professor recently sat with Junkmedia to discuss the new album, visions, digging, and growing up in the industry.

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What's interesting to me about your new album is that it seems more like an attempt to perfect a certain older sound than an attempt to capture that new, hot thing that's going get you on Hot 97 radio.

Right. Right. It was definitely to just solidify and to reinforce what hip hop is. Not to really take it anywhere new. Just regular hip hop. Just good ole hip hop. That's really what I was trying to make, and I think I did a pretty good job. I mean, you know, it has the boom-bap. Just hip hop.

Right. Because I think so much hip hop gets dated so quickly, because everyone is always reaching for that new sound.

Right. And you take it somewhere where it's not supposed to go. Now, you know, it's just so far gone. I just wanted to reinforce what hip hop, or what I feel hip hop is. Definitely.

When you're looking to capture that good hip hop feel, what are the things that you draw on for inspiration?

A lot of the good memories that I have is just seeing dudes in sheepskins with sheepskin gloves and, you know, dancing. And people have the new, fresh sneakers on. And they're crispy and they don't want to dance too furiously because their sneakers are crisp. So they're a little stiff. That's the stuff that I always draw on, and that's why I always know, regardless of what review I get, I know that this is hip hop. Because of that feeling. People of today might not know it, and I try to bring it to them. That's just those memories.

I just draw on the way, way back in the days. People sitting there, the DJ cutting and all that. I just always think about that. Those days. Those are my fondest memories. Breaking, just all of that, man. I love that. When I went to Amsterdam, they have these symbols like...they have one with a spray paint can, one with a guy doing windmills, one with a microphone, and one with a turntable. And that's hip hop to them. But now, in New York, hip hop is just a record that plays on the radio. You still got dudes who do graffiti and everything, but it's just...It's crazy right now. Because I remember how it was when people were doing whole cars and breaking and all of that. So that's what I think about. Definitely.

Now there are a lot of newer producers who talk about, brag about how they never use samples. But samples, to me, are what hip hop is about, and I personally have been educated by samples a lot.

Right. See, that's so creative to me, because you're taking something that is already saying something and you're changing what it's saying. Just flipping it and re-freshening it. It's still amazing to me to sample. To just come up with different things out of. I don't know. I can't even really describe it, but that's a good feeling, man. To flip something or chop something, it's like "Wow. This is crazy. It was saying this before, but now I got it like." It's crazy.

And it's your own.

Yeah. You redid it to where it's something else. Then you put your rhymes over it and now you've made this other song have a whole new definition. And that goes back to the roots. That's like reggae, everyone sounding over the same beats. It's just...it's just raw, man. I can't even describe it.

So then as beat maker, let me ask what is the difference between a good song and good song to sample?

There's a picture that always comes in my mind: it's someone standing in front of a store with a big speaker and something funky just coming out of the speaker. That's how I know. When I'm listening to a record and I'm saying 'Yo, I could flip that like this' and I just get that picture in my mind.

Shit. Really?

Yeah. It's crazy.

So let's say, for example, you used that Rodriguez in "You're the man." Twice you used that sample. So that's kind of the vibe you had listening to that record?

Um, that was....I don't know. The way that he performed it, and it's saying "Sugar man," but then I'm cutting the S part off, and then it's flipped to where you give the illusion that it's saying "You're the man." So that's more with the record than anything. You know, messing with the records, chopping them and cutting little pieces off.

Also, on "Rewind" you used the T-LaRock.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. T-LaRock. Some people didn't take to it too good, because they don't know. But that's kind of my mission. Hip hop is so far gone that I would take a record and maybe some of the old school people who used to listen to T-LaRock but don't listen to hip hop anymore might hear it and say, "Yo! That's 'It's Yours!' Hip hop is back!" So that really was my purpose for that.

But that's so good, because "It's Yyours" is like a real old school.

That's hip hop.

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I want to talk a little bit about digging for records. Because you're someone who's spent a lot of time digging.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was just in Long Island the other day just picking some stuff up.

OK, let's start with that then. What are the some of the best places that you go for digging?

Definitely Long Island. That's a gold mine out there. You'll find crazy stuff. And Brooklyn, my God. Brooklyn, like those reggae shops, some of the basements what they've got down there like as far as soul and funk.my God. Queens used to be good, but a few stores shut down, but even now it's, you know, little places. And now, where I live in Queens, a lot of people have records in their basements. I can post up a sign "If you have any records for sale." It's different for me now. I'm getting stuff from all over the place now, because a lot of people say "Aw, you know, we don't use these anymore," and they give them, and I got them. So it's a lot for me now. It's coming from everywhere.

What about some other cities?

San Francisco's hot. San Francisco is hot, because it just seems like they have every record is right. They sift the nonsense out, and every record you go through is hot. Cali. LA also. You know, they had a jazz record center out there that was tremendous. There was just stuff that I was finding out there. Um Chicago, the 45s out there are just crazy. And Texas too. Yeah, Texas is crazy. I'm sure that everywhere you go in America you can find something. And even when I went to Holland they had some ill stuff. I can find something anywhere. So I'm straight, because I'll find something by anyone anywhere. Word.

So you just delve into it. You don't go with any list or plan, do you?

No, because you never know what you're gonna get or what you're gonna see. So you've got to you feel it out. You know, especially for prices, because for a while the record conventions changed the game. Because all of a sudden the records are 600 and 700 dollars!? It's like "What!? This isn't digging! This is purchasing; this is putting a down payment on something!" I think that people will always come in this game and try to industrialize it and make it commercial. They want to put a big price on it now.

But, you know, we as hip hoppers have to weave around that. They're gonna start putting $600 price tags on the funk records, so we're gonna have to go to the Latin or foreign records. Because we can't bow down to this commercialism. I've always seen it like we're bandits, you know what I'm saying? We grab something up, just like a graffiti writer would go out at night and throw his name up. We're grabbing records up, and putting it out there like "Yo, this is alright." So I always want to keep that bandit feeling, but I can catch something anywhere.

Someone like Puffy...I've seen where he'll take a real obvious sample and just loop it and use it like that. But he'll just pay for it. And it'll be plain as day on the back: Al Green "Blah, blah, blah." We still try to keep it bandit. So that people have to dig for it and say "Yo! Oh, this is what he used! Man, I didn't know." We try not to play the industry's game, we want the industry to play our game.

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You had this album. It was supposed to come out on Geffen, but it never came out.

Right. Geffen Records is a big rock record company that was trying to get into hip hop. And just off of street buzz, all of these clichÈs that these record companies are going off, they decided that they wanted to sign Large Professor. And I think that, after a while, they just didn't know the level of hip hop that I was bringing. So then it all just disintegrated.

So you figure they didn't know what they were getting just from the very beginning?

Yeah, from the very beginning. I think they wanted something more friendly. I was more rebellious, especially on the mic. I don't think it was the beats. I just think it was more what I was saying on the mic was just too much for them.

They couldn't make it into something that they could put on MTV.

Right. Exactly.

But as a person with bills to pay and a living to make, I'm sure there must be some temptation to cash in on something that's fake but probably will sell.

Definitely. Around '96, '97 when I was with Geffen and those guys kind of bailed out on me, that was a point where, you know, "Do I try to do this new stuff or do I stick to my guns and just keep it real?" And really it wasn't even a question in my mind. Because no matter what, I can't avoid it: these pictures are in my head. When I see the dudes in the sheepskins and they're saying "Ho!" and all of that, you know, I'm just stuck to it.

Did you have a feeling that they were gonna drop you?

Yeah I had a feeling, because it just started taking so long. And it was just a lot of nonsense. But the one thing that's good is that hip hop showed me love.

You are on a much smaller label now. How are you finding that?

Oh, it feels great, because musically I can do what I want to do. And that's all I've ever wanted. I mean, you definitely want to get paid; you want to be compensated if you're selling records. But that's not my main objective. My main objective is just put that original hip hop out there, you know, for us as a hip hop community so that we can stay strong.

From what I've heard, you're somebody who's been really generous with your knowledge and who's tried to lend a hand, and one thing about hip hop going back a little bit is the idea of each one teaching one.

Right. Definitely.

So how has that philosophy influenced your career and, beyond that, your life?

Right. Well, that's just how I was brought up, you know, by my parents as just a general way of life. And it just carried over into hip hop. Because [hip hop's] becoming so industrialized, and the industry has so much to say about it, it's like, "We have to look out for one another." So, you know, I just try to do that. I try to look out for the next man as much as possible.

So what have you been doing for these younger artists who haven't spent as much time as you?

I tell them, "First, this is business. Hip hop, you know, we might love it as a music, but when you're making a record, sales matter. All of these things matter. Don't wholeheartedly think of it as business, but always remember that, when it all boils down, it's business. Let your creativity shine, but always remember that it's business."

Because everybody's got horror stories.

Yeah, exactly. Because that's when you come into this thinking "Well, I don't care about that! I don't care about the contract!" And you just want to keep your vibes right and you want to make some good music. Now you've made the good music and people start coming up to you like "Man, why you don't have this or that?" And you're like "Ah man, I should have that? Word! Why don't I have a car?!" And the record company is getting fat, you know? And I was so naive. And that's how it happens, man. That's how it happens. And the thing is that this industry takes them from when they're very young, man. Very young, it's like from day one of these kids' lives, man.They get 'em and they got 'em. And that's it.

Brendan McGetrick
December 2, 2002

[Photographs are © 2000 Angela Brown]