At this year’s BET awards, the honor for lifetime achievement went to Sean “Diddy” Combs – and why not? He signed the Notorious BIG and takes credit for “inventing” the remix. He changed what it means to be called a hip-hop super producer while becoming a multi-platinum-selling rapper himself. Really, he’s not that much different from Pete Rock.
Rock (real name Peter O Philips) is the other kind of super-producer, the one who actually does the grunt work of trawling for rare records and cutting and stitching them into something fresh. In fact, he could just as easily take credit for inventing the remix while reimagining Public Enemy’s Shut Em Down and House of Pain’s Jump Around. Rock has collaborated with Kanye and Kendrick and seen his Midas touch translate to 25m global album sales and untold billions more in streams. And he’s an impressive rapper in his own right; Rolling Stone ranks his 1991 hit with CL Smooth, They Reminisce Over You, among its 500 greatest songs.
