For most of my hip hop life, the Soul Brother No. 1 was my favorite producer. That's back when I looked at producers as strictly beat makers and as a beatmaker, Rock might be the best to ever do it.
In the midst of this month’s celebration of Dilla, one has to acknowledge that Dilla, on a fundamental level, is Rock – so is Kanye and 9th Wonder and Just Blaze and a slew of other dudes that inculcate horns and soul riffs and other super-chopped-samples into their tracks. That newer hop-sound that was more influenced by straight-ahead jazz and late-60s/early-70s soul predated Rock, a tad. De La (and therefore Prince Paul) and Tribe (and therefore Shaheed) had come out a few years before Pete and CL debuted with All Souled Out EP in 1991, but I doubt Pete was sittin in Mount Vernon, heard 3 Feet High or People’s Instinctive Travels and -- voila! -- he had his musical steez. Those Native Tongue albums may have introduced hip hop to jazzier sounds – Pete was different, though. It wasn't just jazzy (although, save maybe the Gary Bartz-sample on Tribe’s “Butter”, Rock hit us with, probably, the illest horn riff in hoop-history – the monumental Tom Scott-sample on “The Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)”) Pete was more soul. And everything was obscure and sampled so magnificently. If you took every producer in hop, it’s likely that PR has the deepest crates, you can tell with his music.
So, in the midst of two extremes in the early 90s – the alternative-hop of the Native Tongues and the brewing hardcore gangsta ish comin from the West (and even that funky-James Brown-inspired school that EPMD was still championing) – you had Pete coming out with this melange that was funky-soulful-jazzy and blatantly hip hop all at the same time. Rock was unique and with the help of Large Proffessor (see Uncle Harry’s essay on hip hop’s most slept on porducers), showed alot of these younger kats how to do this.
Doin’ Knowledge
If you wanna do some knowledge on Pete, check these albums: Illmatic, The Main Ingredient, Soul Survivor...and, don't sleep, Blue Funk.
And oh by the way, "Reminisce" is considered to be on of the three or four best beats of All-Time. It was a musical masterpiece from the subtle gospel humming in the backround, to hard, charging snare to the famous sax-sample. But for my money -- and I swear I'm not being controversial-- my favorite Pete track ever was "Straighten It Out" off that same album Mecca and the Soul Brother. The trio-horns yo-yo steez and that despicable guitar lick will be the cause of my death one day.
 3. DJ Premier
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 2. Dr. Dre
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 1. Rza
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