Hip-Hop Legends Large Professor and Lord Finesse Bring In The Shrine’s 4-Year Anniversary!

If you wanted some of that classic old school sounding golden era rap/hip-hop of the 90’s than The Shrine in Chicago’s southloop was the place to be this past Friday May 31st.  As legendary producers/deejays/emcees Large Professor of Queens, New York and Lord Finesse of The Bronx, New York spun some of the great records they produced and/or contributed to Hip-Hop, such as Nas, Common, Eric B & Rakim, Mobb Deep and A Tribe Called Quest among others to help bring in the four-year anniversary celebration event for The Shrine.  Pro and Finesse also spun some of their personal favorites such as The Diplomats, Snoop Dogg and Michael Jackson to name a few to help bring in the celebration of another year at what has become one of downtown Chicago’s best facilities for live music in just four short years.

The night actually started off slow too, but once Extra P and Finesse started spinning and even somewhat battled with each other throughout the night with the other trying to outdo the other on the wheels of steel things just kept getting better throughout the night till the dust finally settled and the event was over.  While the event came to a close for everyone else it was just really getting started for me and the other media that packed The Shrine’s media room afterwards to try and get are interviews in.  I got a chance to have a quick Q and A session with both of these Hip-Hop legends and touched on a couple topics.  Such as who they worked with and want to work with, as well as both their thoughts on late great Hip-Hop legend and one of the greatest lyricists of all-time Big L.

Nello for TheHipHopDemocrat.com: You both have worked with so many legends from Nas to Kool G Rap, Rakim, Common and Big L.  Who is your favorite that you have worked with and is there anybody that you haven’t worked with that you really want to work with?

Large Pro: My favorite artists I have worked with is Nas.  I got to see him come from the embryonic stages to where he is now.  Slick Rick is also somebody who I did and an artist that I would like to work with is The Lox.  I like The Lox.

Lord Finesse: I mean the artists that I worked with and had some of the most fun with is of course Notorious B.I.G. and Big L.  They kind of the same to me cause it was more like a comedy session than it was an actual production session.  We just joked and laughed a lot, but they just happened to make hits during the outcome of the studio.  Who would I like to work with?  Oh, wow!  I’m going name some other shit like Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Patrice Rushen, Quincy Jones.  I want to work with the people that did it before me because they one of the reasons I’m doing it.

Nello for TheHipHopDemocrat.com: Big L I feel he gets the respect he deserves, but he sort of doesn’t.  Why do you guys think that is?

Large Pro: Oh no, Big L definitely gets respect.  You know he gets respect worldwide.  It may not be all out there, but it’s out there for sure.

Finesse: I mean I’m glad he is getting the respect he deserves.  You know when Harlem World and all that stuff started people forget that he started that whole renaissance.  If it wasn’t for L, “Where would a Harlem World be?, Where would a Dipset be?, Where would people like that be?”  Because you had Dougie Fresh, you had Rob Base, you had Kool Moe Dee, but when L came about he started off a whole other street orientated category that sparked a lot of other rappers, that’s why they do it today.  But when they do it today I just want him to get the credit.  I don’t want the credit, I wanted him to get the credit because he started that and that’s what people fail to recognize with the dude.  One of the greatest lyricists in the game, did his thing, but recognize the seeds and trends that he started.

Nello: And that concludes my time with you guys I want to thank you both for the quick interview and shouts to The Shrine on four years strong as one of the best venues for live Hip-Hop and for live music period in the downtown Chicago area.  Hopefully some of those collaborations come to fruition in the future too.