I'm passionate about music in general, not just hip-hop. But when it comes to hip-hop, I don't wanna see it die culturally.

Bad Name' is just that head-nod, traditional loop over a breakbeat, chopped up, and it sounds like the way I do my thing.

With 'Family and Loyalty,' I didn't already have an idea for that video. So I called Fab Five Freddy. I wanted to get a director that I didn't have to explain Gang Starr to and he was with it.

It's whatever - people like me and Dre are music people, so we're beyond just hip-hop. We're purists. Not everybody who makes beats is a purist.

I've done some scoring in the past, but I want to get into it on a bigger level - a Danny Elfman level.

I'm not a tough guy, but I'll throw down just like the rest of them if I have to.

Actually, for 'Family & Loyalty' I wanted Drake on the track but he was about to go on tour for his Scorpion album, so timewise it wasn't going to work.

I've always cared about how certain songs fade into other ones and which songs should follow others. I studied that as a consumer and fan before I even got into music.

I've been sequencing all of my albums, from any Gang Starr stuff to Jeru to Group Home, all of it. I pay a lot of attention to that and really always have. I've even helped sequence friend's projects.

Every now and then there might be a beat someone turned down that I have as an unused beat. But everything that predominantly matches the artist in my 30 years of doing this, it was me walking in and sitting there with no drums, no samples, no nothing, and making a beat on the spot.

My mom's an art teacher, so I always had music in the house. She always had records, and I was mesmerized by the mechanics of how a turntable works.

I grew up in a town called Prairie View. It's like 45 minutes outside of Houston.

I was a heavy kid, even though I was into sports and very active.

Yeah, Travis Scott's dad taught me how to ride minibikes and how to repair the engines. His name's Jack Webster. Jack had a drum set and his brother had a bass. So I used to play with them, and that's what started me wanting to get into music and take it serious. And this is before rap.

I love heavy metal, Metallica. I'm into Jefferson Starship and acid rock.

My musical knowledge goes beyond hip-hop.

My crew used to listen to 'Taking It to the Top' by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

Jay Z and Biggie and Nas always listened to my direction. They listened and they applied it and I also listened to their opinions and that's why the records came out so good.

I remember going backstage on a random night and Kanye goes, 'Ayo Premier, I'm about to drop an album called 'College Dropout' and I'm rapping on the whole thing. And as I soon it drop it's gonna go double platinum.' I looked at him like, 'That's a bold statement to make if you never rapped before.'

When I was 19 I had a record deal.

You can't do seven successful albums and just hate each other. Our yin and yang, and night and day, is what made us great when we went into the studio.

Guru always wanted to do what he called a 'chick record.' By coincidence, every time we did one, he was either breaking up with one or with a new girl that he loved.

Everybody deserves a piece of where they live, in some type of fashion. Music is just my way of preserving that.

I'm a country boy.