Archive · Collector's Corner
Who Put Together Bad Meets Premo?
By Diony C.
•May 26, 2026
•5 min read
Before PRhyme was an album, someone pulled twelve Royce Da 5'9' and DJ Premier records together and gave the collection a title. Now streaming in the archive.
Before PRhyme was an album, before the press releases and the Adrian Younge sample clearances and the December 9 release date, someone on the internet did what heads have always done. They pulled everything together.
No DJ tag. No hosted by credit. No co-sign from a label or a manager or a blog. Just twelve tracks, a cover image, and a title: Bad Meets Premo.
Whoever built this tape knew the catalog. They went back to Rock City era Royce, pulled “My Friend” from 2002, dropped “Hip Hop” from Death Is Certain in 2004, included the “Writer’s Block” DJ Premier Remix from 2011. Then stacked it alongside tracks that were circulating ahead of the PRhyme drop: “U Looz,” “Second Place,” “Boom,” “Courtesy.” The Shady 2.0 Cypher uncut. “Hood Love” with Bun B and Joell Ortiz.
It landed on mixtapekings.com in November 2014, one month before PRhyme hit stores. 491 downloads before the files went quiet.
Nobody knows who put it together. That is part of what makes it a collector piece.
The History Behind the Tape
Royce Da 5’9’ and DJ Premier had been working together since the late 1990s. Premier heard Royce on the Bad Meets Evil “Nuttin To Do” twelve-inch, connected through The Source founder Jonathan Shecter, and the first thing they made together was “My Friend,” a track Royce later described as one of his earliest conceptual experiments. Premier made a beat that matched the goofiness of the concept while keeping his signature scratch intact.
That collaboration ran for over fifteen years before PRhyme was ever announced. “Boom” in 2002. “Hip Hop” in 2004. Premier hosting the first Bar Exam mixtape with Statik Selektah in 2007. Executive producing Street Hop in 2008. The relationship between these two ran deeper than most rap partnerships because it was never contractual. It was mutual respect built track by track across a decade and a half.
When Royce approached Premier about doing a full project together in 2014, Premier had never sampled just one artist across an entire album. The project that convinced him was an Adrian Younge instrumental record. “I’ve never sampled just one artist, I’m known for my reputation and my creativity,” Premier said. Royce pushed until he agreed. They made nine tracks with no leftover sessions, no twenty-song culls. Just nine records built one at a time until Royce felt it needed four more.
That became PRhyme. First group Premier had led since Gang Starr.
The anonymous compiler of Bad Meets Premo understood all of that before the album had a name.
Why This Tape Matters
The tracklist is not PRhyme. Half the tracks predate the album by a decade. What Bad Meets Premo is, is a collector’s argument: Premo and Royce had already made a classic body of work together, one song at a time, across fifteen years, and someone felt the need to document it.
Before streaming playlists curated themselves. Before algorithm radio decided what you liked. Before any of that, it was heads doing this by hand. Pulling tracks, sequencing them, giving a collection a title and a cover and putting it out with no expectation of credit. That is what mixtape culture has always been.
The tape served its purpose. PRhyme dropped December 9, 2014 to universal acclaim. Metacritic gave it an 84. HipHopDX named it Album of the Year. The streets had already been ready.
Premo has not slowed down since. In December 2025 he finally delivered Light-Years with Nas on Mass Appeal. A full album. Thirty years in the making from Illmatic to now. Some partnerships take that long to become what they were always supposed to be. The anonymous compiler of Bad Meets Premo was just ahead of the curve.
Also From Premo: Light-Years with Nas
New Release
Light-Years — Nas & DJ Premier
December 2025 on Mass Appeal. Thirty years after Illmatic, Premo and Nas finally made the album together.
The Artists
Featured Artists
Royce Da 5’9’
U Looz, Second Place, Boom, My Friend, Courtesy, Shake This, Hip Hop, and more
Stream the full tape in the player above. If you know who compiled this, let us know.
PRhyme — The Album
The tape was the prequel. This is the main event.
PRhyme dropped December 9, 2014 on PRhyme Records. Nine tracks. All production by DJ Premier, all samples drawn exclusively from Adrian Younge’s catalog. HipHopDX Album of the Year. Metacritic 84.
PRhyme Records · 2014
PRhyme — DJ Premier & Royce Da 5’9’
Nine tracks. Adrian Younge samples throughout. HipHopDX Album of the Year. Metacritic 84.
Stream PRhyme on Apple Music →