DX: What are some songs on the album that you feel people will be drawn to?
PR: I think people will like the joint I got with Jim Jones and Max B. The Jim Jones song is aight. I did a club joint with Rell. It’s a nice, feel good song. On the street side I got joints with Papoose, Royal Flush, Redman. I got a Reggae joint with Chip-Fu from the Fu-Schnickens and Rene from Zhane’… that’s the dark skinned one for all those who don’t know.

DX: With radio and video stations being so particular about artists having a certain type of song to get airplay, are you worried about your project going unnoticed?
PR: That’s how the game is. It’s to a point where cats want that commercial, Pop record that’s going to make them some money. And that’s all they want anyway. They want to enslave the artists, in a sense, to make a bunch of those types of songs that make them a bunch of money. I only believe in what comes out of you. I don’t believe in people telling you what to think and what to say and how to make your music. You should do it on your own and do whatever you feel. Make whatever your soul is feeling; that’s what I been doing for years.

DX: You’re part of one of the most influential groups in Hip Hop and responsible for the creation of some classic Hip Hop records. Do you feel you get the respect you deserve?
PR: I feel like there’s someone behind the scenes or in some office somewhere that doesn’t know their history and doesn’t know Hip Hop. If they did, they would include guys like me more. I was on the Hip Hop Honors show once, as a deejay. I wasn’t on stage or anything like that. You only seen me up in the corner. And it’s funny to me. But I was glad to be there and I’m always glad to take part in things like that. But there is somebody in the back that really doesn’t know their history. They don’t really know Hip Hop and don’t really love Hip Hop. And it’s always that person that ends up getting a job in Hip Hop. There’s a bunch of people making a living in this that don’t know their history, and it makes me laugh.

DX: Your career spans almost two decades and still going what were some of the moments that meant the most to you?
PR: My best moment as a producer is always when I get to work with people I never worked with before. Guys like Run-DMC, LL, Biggie, Big L, 'Pac, people like that. I was excited to work with these artists because, at the time, I was just a consumer of Hip Hop. I was snatching money out my mom's pocketbook to go to the record store. I loved it and was that determined to do music. It was embedded in me at an early age because my father was into it. As an emcee, my favorite times were when cats would come to the crib. Everybody from Biz Markie to Redman, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, Large Professor, just a lot of cats would come by the crib and we’d be jamming in the crib. We’d listen to samples and rhyme over beats we made that day or whenever. That’s one of the most glorious feelings. Tours were cool too. Just seeing the audience rock with you, singing the words and shit is a crazy feeling.

DX: In a previous interview, Chubb Rock mentioned he’d want to do a Jam session album similar to what the Jazz artists used to do. Who would you like to recruit if you could do such a project?
PR: There are so many people out there that I’d love to work with on a project like that. LL Cool J, I’d want to bring my cousin Heavy D back, Dr. Dre, Snoop, Jay-Z, OutKast…the list goes on.

DX: It’s common knowledge that there’s no 401K in Hip Hop. With that being said, do you ever see yourself stepping away from the music industry to pursue a more stable way to make a living?
PR: I will always do something in music. Anything that I am able to do professionally in music I will pursue it. One of the things I really want to get into scoring movies. I dibbled and dabbled in it but I really would like to get into it in a serious way especially since I seen how RZA capitalized on the scoring thing with Kill Bill and Blade and all that. I would like to deal with action movies, superhero movies, and gangster movies. Gangster shit and superhero shit in particular. I’m real into the superhero thing big time. I been into them since I was a kid, so I would love to be part of one of them. I like a lot of the movies they’ve been making and they’ve been coming out with a lot of them lately so I’m really gung ho about getting into it now.