[Comp] Big Shug & DJ Premier "album"

When Big Shug and DJ Premier hook up we comes as close as we ever will again to new Gang Starr material, considering Shug was always part of the Gang Starr Foundation and is still standing with Preem. When Group Home and Jeru got albums fully produced by the beat-virtuso in the mid '90s Shug settled back with a few guest spots and two 12" singles. After the new millenium arrived the talk of Shug solo album fully produced by Premier started circulating, and both of them confirmed it in interviews. "Who's Hard" finally dropped in 2005 and while it was a banging album it wasn't the full collaboration many of us we're hoping for. Within the next three years Shug dropped an additional two albums, "Street Champ" and "Other Side Of The Game".

While all these LPs are solid releases in their own right, (that i recommend you go out and support if you like what you're hearing on the tape i'm presenting below), it was the DJ Premier produced joints that really stood out to me. Together there was a total of 16 collaborations between the MC/producer and after Preem's album with Blaq Poet dropped last year I felt I wanted to compile a tracklist with the tunes from Shug's albums. Considering the tracks on Poet's album ranged from recordings between 2006 and 2009, this Big Shug album with tracks from 2005 to 2008 could have been an actual album by the two. With the sequencing I put this together with I really feel it sounds like an album all the right elements are there - you got the perfect intro for the album, a perfect amount of guest features, a good closing track, etc. At least that's how I feel and i'm sure that you will love this as well if you're a Gang Starr head. I call it "WHO THE HARDEST?!".

01. "Soundcheck"

02. "Tha Way It Iz"

03. "Counter Punch" (Ft. Gang Starr)

04. "On The Record"

05. "Bang 'Em Down"

06. "Do Ya?"

07. "Tha 3 Shugz"

08. "Sic-A-Niggaz" (Ft. Bumpy Knuckles)

09. "Streets Move" (Ft. Singapore Kane)

10. "Play It"

11. "Like A Muhfucka"

12. "My Boston" (Ft. Singapore Kane & Termanology)

13. "When I Strike"

14. "It Just Don't Stop"

15. "Dirt" (Ft. Smiley The Ghetto Child)

16. "What's Really Real"

BIG SHUG - "WHO THE HARDEST"