Hip-Hop Made: EPMD

Back with another installment of Hip-Hop Made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the birth of Hip-Hop, we tapped in with PMD, one-half of the legendary rap duo EPMD. Erick Sermon, also known as "E" or "Double E" and Parrish Smith, also known as PMD, made up the group EPMD in 1987 and became a major force in the game of Hip-Hop as they popularized funk and rock samples in their breaks whereas many others lifted their samples from disco records. When PMD reflected on the songs that made him want to get into rapping, there were a lot of songs that made him fall in love with Hip-Hop, like "King Tim III," "Rapper's Delight," and "Loddy Doddy" but it was Rakim and Eric B.'s "Make Em' Clap To This" that had him sold, "I was like yo to the batmobile." At the time he was a DJ but it was this song that pushed him to step out from behind the scenes. And fun fact about PMD is that while in college at the Southern Connecticut State University he traveled back and forth between school for football practice and New York to get in the studio and even talked about sometimes bringing E along with him. Words by Yasmeen Akbar Interview by DJ Buck