Bring Me the Remix of Zilla Rocca Week 3: Philly's Small Professor:
This week's installment of Bring Me The Remix of Zilla Rocca (part one here, part two here), an ongoing project in which Zilla Rocca's favorite producers remix tracks from his mixtape Bring Me the Head of Zilla Rocca, comes from one of my favorite producers doing it right now, Philly's Small Professor. For the third remix, S.P. has flipped Zilla Rocca's Rick Rubinesque Flow God Zilla, a track originally built around some head banging guitar samples and a scratched up vocal from Mally From the 612, into something with a far smoother edge to it. Once again I'm left amazed at how Small Pro, as with the two previously featured producers, has seamlessly remade the song (a song, it's worth noting, that was quite good to begin with) with a beat that is in an entirely different lane than the original.
That being said, I am not at all surprised that S.P.'s remix was anything less than dope. Everything I've heard from him up to this point - from his work with Philly emcee Has-Lo on the Fuck Has Day remixes to his reworking of Jay-Z on Crooklyn Gangster - has impressed me. Having recently released his first "official" instrumental album, Slowbus, on Seclusiasis Records, it seems that his career as a producer is just starting to take off.
Here's what Zilla had to say about Small Pro:
"
I had read about Small Pro several times in '07-early '08 at Wake Your Daughter Up and Poisonous Paragraphs. He's from Philly, I'm from Philly, he makes beats, I make beats, he hates Papa John's pizza, as do I...it made no sense as to why I didn't have a hard drive full of his beats much earlier than this fall. He started posting on 215hiphop.com, I reached out to him, knocked out a joint over one of his "American Gangster" remix instrumentals [zshare d/l link], and we built from there. Later on, I found out his label home is Seclusiasis, which is run by one of my old college friends Starkey who I did my first group, Crooked Soul, with. Small world, right?
I picked Small Pro for "Flow God Zilla" 'cause I like his approach to remixes -- he enhances the original by playing to the artist's strengths. In other words, he won't put M.O.P. on a lean-with-it-rock-with-it track, but he won't try to out-Premier an original Premo production. "Flow God" is one of my favorite songs I've ever done production-wise, lyrically, and as a performance track. It's my theme song and a lot of people's favorite track from the mixtape, so for the remix, I wanted a totally different feel. And after hearing Small Pro's "Crooklyn Gangster" project and his new album "Slowbus," it only made sense I redeem myself for sleeping on one of my neighbors for so long.
"
You can hear more from Small Pro over at his MySpace page, and in this post that we put up a few months ago. Also, be sure to cop his new instrumental album, Slowbus, which live's up to Zilla's description as being "dope as shit." You can preview and purchase it over at JunoDownload. It's been serving as the soundtrack to my cubicle life for the past few days, and I can say that it's well worth the eight bucks.
Don't forget Zilla's mixtape, Bring Me The Head of Zilla Rocca, which is still available for free! Here's a sendspace link for it.
12/4/2008 07:01:01 PM posted by Fresh
Comments:
The original of this one was dope, had an old Beasties vibe to it. And I agree that Small Pro beat is real smooth.
Any chance we can get the instro's to go with the remixes? Please?
The one or two reviews I've seen of slowbus have all been good so I might have to pick that up this weekend. Kid's got beats for days. Good stuff.
12/5/2008 8:03:31 AM posted by andre
@jb: I think someone else asked for them before, too... I'll ask Zilla and the producers if they can hook it up. There was some talk about possibly releasing the acapellas and instrumentals seperately at some point in the future, so you may be able to get your hands on them after all of this is done if I can't get them for each individual post.
12/5/2008 9:37:28 AM posted by fresh
That sample on the small pro version sounds so good. Even on these booty laptop speakers it sounds like its being played directly off of vinyl. Dope.
12/5/2008 10:38:20 AM posted by Colby
dope.
12/5/2008 12:54:36 PM posted by Will the Kid
Feeling the tracks. Earl Boykins- one of the highest paid Euroleague players in 08. CHeers.
I was always upset that the Nets cut Boykins when he was a rookie. You could be averaging 15+ points a game but eventually if you're under 5'10 you'll eventually be cut/benched out of a coach's fear that you might be exploited on defense. A friend of mine who's 5'8 was drafted by the Hawks and went through the same thing as Boykins - he could score at will and run an offense but could never stick with a team because every coach was afraid to play him, so he went over to Europe to get paid.
Speaking of high paid players in the Euroleague...sportscenter had a piece last night about that highschool player Brandon Jennings who got 2 million to play over there. Turns out he can't play the point to save his life, but he has the illest gumby fade I've seen since Arman Gilliam.
/tangent
12/5/2008 2:58:29 PM posted by fresh
Was your buddy Scoonie Penn?
Jennings rocked the Kid N Play fade in the McDonalds game too. Patrick Ewing 1990-esque. Armam Gilliam...damn, hadn't heard that name in a minute.
SmallPro, first and foremost, papa johns is absolute trash compared to even the worst pizza shop in South Philly, so your statement is utterly blasphemous. Please refrain from using drugs in the near and distant future.
Otherwise, that remix is fire!!!!!! I'm glad I get to hear these joints before they actually "come out". The perks of being a member of Beat Garden.
12/6/2008 12:30:40 PM posted by nicothebeast
Papa John's is disgusting, their sauce tastes like they mix it with ketchup and sugar. Philly may not be up to the same level as NY as far as pizza joints go, but surely you can do better than Papa John's!
That aside, thanks for coming through small pro. And what's good Nico?
@Commish: Yup, good guess that's who it was. I remember during the summers up at school we used to play in this league with a bunch of the other colleges in the area. The Celtics used to do some of their preseason training at our gym, so they had a team in the league with some of their players. One night we played them, they had Dominique Wilkins, Dana Barros and the rest of the team was a bunch of dudes I had never heard of. Anyway, Scoonie guarded Barros and absolutely torched him, to the point where even the guys on the Celtics team were leaving Barros on his own on D just to see how many points Scoonie would get. I have no doubt he could have done well in the nba if given a chance.
12/7/2008 6:58:00 PM posted by fresh
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