NEW MUSIC | REBEL BABEL ENSEMBLE GIFTS “TRIBUTE TO DJ PREMIER” EPIC MUSIC VIDEO TO THE HIP HOP LEGEND AS A SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PRESENT SPREADING ITS GLOBAL MESSAGE OF UNITY

The latest pro­ject of the Rebel Babel Ensemble is a uni­ver­sal trib­ute to hip hop pion­eer DJ Premi­er. The transcul­tur­al inter­na­tion­al big band, per­haps the world’s largest (cur­rently boast­ing over 11,000 mem­bers from six­teen coun­tries), unleashed “Trib­ute to DJ Premi­er,” its her­culean video “gift” to Preemo and the world, on the legend’s birth­day, March 21, 2020. For this par­tic­u­lar orches­tra­tion and video pro­ject, Rebel Babel and its con­duct­or and co-founder Łukasz “L.U.C.” Rostkowski arranged samples from DJ Premi­er­’s work for a jazz big band col­lab­or­a­tion that was recor­ded in eight European and U.S. cit­ies with just under 100 musi­cians involved.

From incep­tion to com­ple­tion, the pro­ject took over a year, and in the end, gathered almost 100 musi­cians from Europe and the U.S. to par­ti­cip­ate col­lect­ively in the trib­ute. The bands were recor­ded in New York and Los Angeles as well as in Aus­tin, New Orleans and in Connecticut’s New Bri­tain, plus the Pol­ish cit­ies of Gdańsk, Warsaw, Sopot and Wrocław. Multi award-win­ning battle turn­tab­list DJ Eprom (IDA World Cham­pi­on among oth­er titles and hon­ors) was instru­ment­al in the project.

As a glob­al ambas­sad­or, Rebel Babel con­nects musi­cians, rap­pers and com­posers from dif­fer­ent regions of the world com­bin­ing cul­tures, lan­guages and styl­ist­ic genres. The ensemble travels around the world organ­iz­ing sur­real performances—flash mobs and parades com­bin­ing live music with the sounds of nature or technology—as well as micro- and macro-con­certs. The mis­sion of the pro­ject is to build dia­logue and under­stand­ing through music.
L.U.C., the ori­gin­at­or of the trib­ute, said that one of the factors that inspired him to cre­ate this arrange­ment was due to the gen­er­os­ity of DJ Premi­er him­self. “Our orches­tra is try­ing to make pos­it­ive sur­prises. Some­times it’s a con­cert with car horns for those drivers who are tired of the morn­ing drive to work, some­times it’s play­ing for sick chil­dren in a hos­pice and some­times almost 500 days of work and a birth­day present for a hip-hop icon,” declared L.U.C. “We really appre­ci­ate how DJ Premi­er takes time to remem­ber and hon­or oth­er artists, and makes sure that their work is not for­got­ten. This trib­ute is our expres­sion of grat­it­ude and respect, and a sur­prise birth­day gift!”
Par­ti­cip­at­ing Bands:
• Aus­tin — Bunch of Dudes Ensemble
• Los Angeles — Final Boss Brass Band
• New Bri­tain, CT — Red Satin
• New Orleans — Slow Rol­las Brass Band
• New York — Shag Horns
• Warsz­a­wa — DJ Eprom
• Wrocław — Wojtek Buliński
• Gdańsk — Tubi­cin­ator­es Gedanenses
Source Mater­i­al:
1. DJ Premi­er — I’m Legend (Instru­ment­al)
2. Gang Starr — Full Clip
3. Gang Starr — Battle
4. KRS-One — MC’s Act Like They Don’t Know
5. The Four Owls — Think Twice
6. M.O.P — Fol­low Instructions
7. DJ Premi­er, Rakim, Nas & KRS-One — Classic
8. Gang Starr — Battle
9. Nas — N.Y. State of Mind
10. ROYCE DA 5’9 — Boom DJ Premier
Par­tial cred­its for this pro­ject include:
• Pro­duc­tion — L.U.C.
• Music — DJ Premier
• Arrange­ment and music pro­duc­tion — L.U.C. & Rebel Babel Ensemble, Paweł Hulisz, DJ Eprom
• Rebel Babel Com­mand­ers — Jak­ub Kle­men­siewicz, Paweł Hulisz, Maciej Strom­ski, Mikołaj, Basi­ukiewicz, Pio­tr Hałaj, Mateusz Men­dyka, Michał Lasota, Wojtek Buliński
• Edit­ing and post­pro­duc­tion — Domin­ik Wern­er — Aer­o­lab, L.U.C.
• Mix — L.U.C.
• Mas­ter­ing — DJ Eprom
See You­Tube page for com­plete credits.
DJ Eprom adds – “DJ Premi­er is a unique pro­du­cer for me. I grew up on his sounds, listen­ing to Gang­Starr, KRS ONE, Jeru The Dam­aja, MOP, Group Home over and over again, as well as record­ings of many oth­ers who were touched by Premier’s tal­ent. His work set a very import­ant dir­ec­tion in hip hop and left a strong mark on all those brought up dur­ing the Golden Era. This trib­ute is my per­son­al salute to him.”
ABOUT:
REBEL BABEL ENSEMBLE –
Rebel Babel Ensemble (RBE) is a transcul­tur­al, inter­na­tion­al col­lect­ive of brass bands and lan­guages cross pol­lin­at­ing jazz, hip hop, folk, funk, clas­sic­al and oth­er genres with mul­ti­lin­gual rap and singing. The glob­al ensemble boasts over 11,000 musi­cians, and count­ing, from six­teen coun­tries with music­al hubs in Poland, Ger­many, Slov­akia, Sweden, Por­tugal, Czech Repub­lic, Spain and bey­ond. This unique BIG band con­nects musi­cians, rap­pers and com­posers from dif­fer­ent regions of the world cross­ing cul­tures, lan­guages and styl­ist­ic genres. RBE hopes to cre­ate a dia­logue through music­al and lin­guist­ic under­stand­ing. Con­certs are per­formed with RBE’s seasoned mem­bers col­lab­or­at­ing with loc­al brass bands who bring their own cul­tur­al tra­di­tions to the performance.
The col­lect­ive of pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians travels around the world organ­iz­ing sur­real per­form­ances as well as micro- and macro-con­certs. Musi­cians from loc­al orches­tras, music schools and estab­lished big bands— includ­ing out­stand­ing soloists—are invited to join. Meet­ings and work­shops lead to grand gala con­certs, many presen­ted at fest­ivals, as well as crazy flash mobs and parades com­bin­ing live music with the sounds of nature or tech­no­logy. They have per­formed to the rhythm of an escal­at­or in Barcelona’s metro, assembled a flash mob con­cert with car horns at a Mad­rid inter­sec­tion, organ­ized a brass band bike parade and even per­formed a song with a ship’s siren in San Fran­cisco Bay. Rebel Babel com­bines con­tem­por­ary with loc­al tra­di­tion­al music; high cul­ture with street culture.
The ensemble has recor­ded the album DIA­LOG I, com­bin­ing rap with world music. It also has a very act­ive film and jazz pro­ject, Pol­ish Hol­ly­wood Film Com­posers, under the Rebel Babel umbrella. L.U.C. and Rebel Babel Film Orches­tra embarked on a tour last year, hit­ting the U.S. in Octo­ber with shows in New Bri­tain, CT, Queens, NY, Aus­tin, TX and Los Angeles, CA. They cre­ated rein­ter­pret­a­tions of world renowned film music com­posers includ­ing Krzysztof Komeda, Karol Rathaus and Academy Award-win­ners Bron­isław Kaper and Jan A.P. Kaczmarek. See Komeda’s Rosemary’s Baby score per­formed here by Paw­beats with Rebel Babel’s support.
Rebel Babel Ensemble joins pro­fes­sion­als with enthu­si­asts, col­lid­ing folksy with futur­ism. Through­out its per­form­ing and record­ing sched­ule, RBE works to ful­fill the dreams of young musi­cians want­ing to con­nect with pro­fes­sion­als through per­form­ances and vari­ous edu­ca­tion­al opportunities.
L.U.C. –

Rebel Babel Co-founder Łukasz “L.U.C.” Rostkowski is an innov­at­ive pro­du­cer, music com­poser, per­former, song­writer and Pol­ish rap­per. In 2015, along with Jan Eleński aka John Feat., he foun­ded Rebel Babel Ensemble, a transcul­tur­al, inter­na­tion­al big band which has grown to over 11,000 glob­al mem­bers. He is also a well respec­ted con­cert and video dir­ect­or. A lov­er of music, film, and graph­ics, he com­bines nu jazz, trip-hop and hip-hop with clas­sic­al and elec­tron­ic music in his many layered pro­jects and col­lab­or­a­tions. He has released fif­teen albums since 2002 as well as many soundtracks, spec­tacles and videos. His song “Slee­p­o­hol­ic” was chosen for the soundtrack to Ale­jandro Inar­ritu and Emmanuel Lubezki’s VR pro­ject Carne y Arena that premiered at the 2017 Cannes Film Fest­iv­al, and was awar­ded a Spe­cial Achieve­ment Academy Award.

Rostkowski has received many awards and recog­ni­tions for this work span­ning live con­cert spec­tacles, ori­gin­al per­form­ances and respec­ted edu­ca­tion­al pro­jects. He was pro­duced and recor­ded with many great instru­ment­al­ists and vocal­ists, and has provided live con­cert sup­port to Tricky, The Prodigy, Massive Attack, Skunk Anan­sie, Talib Kweli, Wu-Tang Clan, Cold­cut and many others.
Cur­rently, L.U.C.’s love for con­nect­ing pic­ture with music has mani­fes­ted in scor­ing two films, one a new dark com­edy for NETFLIX.
DJ EPROM –
DJ Eprom aka Michał Baj is a Pol­ish DJ, as well as a rap­per, music pro­du­cer and sound engin­eer. He has achieved high hon­ors and top awards in many loc­al and inter­na­tion­al DJ battles includ­ing European ITF and was crowned the IDA World Cham­pi­on. Togeth­er with DJs Ben and Short, he co-cre­ates the Mod­u­lat­ors form­a­tion. Under the pseud­onym Szt­igar Bonko, he cre­ates humor­ous hip-hop inspired by the achieve­ments of Cypress Hill. In his work he uses the Silesian dia­lect. He also co-cre­ates a duo with Częstochowa rap­per Sensim, a mem­ber of the Hur­ra­gun band.
DJ PREMI­ER –
Born in 1966, Chris­toph­er Edward Mar­tin, known pro­fes­sion­ally as DJ Premi­er (also known as Preemo), is an Amer­ic­an record pro­du­cer and DJ, and was half of the hip hop duo Gang Starr—alongside the emcee Guru—and forms half of the hip hop duo PRhyme, togeth­er with Royce da 5′9″. He is con­sidered one of the best hip hop pro­du­cers of all time. See full bio at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Premier and vis­it his site at http://premierwuzhere.com.
LINKS:
• “Trib­ute to DJ Premi­er” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHnSNGMNsWY
• Rebel Babel — www.rebelbabel.com
• RB/L.U.C. Films You­Tube — https://www.youtube.com/luc­films
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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

About Rishma

Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.