DJ Premier: “Runway” [ft. Westside Gunn and Rome Streetz] Track Review

Nearly 40 years into his career, DJ Premier is still making hard beats with both grit and elegance. This synthesis comes through in the thudding pianos and chimes that power Nas’ “N.Y. State of Mind,” or in the simmering sampled horns and deep drum breaks of the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Kick in the Door.” For his latest single, “Runway,” he recruits Griselda rappers Westside Gunn and Rome Streetz to go in over swelling orchestral strings and piano, and they both meet him with gusto. Streetz holds it down with surgical rhyme schemes and jokes about being the fourth member of the boy band Hanson, while Gunn sounds more energized than he has in years. His verse has color and personality to spare, bouncing from references to local spots in his native Buffalo to vivid mafia imagery (“Rasklaat, I’ll blow your brains out, you hear me?/Have you covered in red dots for pennies”). Together, they sound like they could go seamlessly from Fashion Week to the shuttered New York nightclub the Tunnel.