Large Pro

His birth certificate says William Paul Mitchell but you can call him Large Pro (Extra P for short), an architect and master of New York hip-hop who has produced for Nas, A Tribe Called Quest, Big Daddy Kane and too many others to fit in this bio. Now, the producers' producer hits you with Main Source, a brand new collection of 15 tracks that'll have you going, "Why can't they all make shit this good anymore?"

Has a name ever been more fitting?

Large.

As a founding member of revered New York hip-hop group Main Source, Large Pro put out a hip-hop classic straight out of the gate. Since then, Extra P's sound has given you Nas's "It Ain't Hard To Tell," Tribe's "Keep it Rollin'" and nearly all of Kool G Rap and DJ Polo's Wanted: Dead or Alive among others.

Pro.

Ask your favorite beatmaker to name his Top 5 producers and chances are good LP's name'll make the cut. Pro (on the Main Source cut "Live at the BBQ") introduced the world in 1991 to a then-unknown 18-year old emcee calling himself Nas, while at the same time mentoring DJ Premier in the art of production. When someone says the overused term "boom bap" to describe their preferred style of hip-hop, they're really saying, "Large Pro's production."

But we know. In hip-hop, attention spans are short and you're only as good as your last song. As Pro bluntly puts it, "One day you hot. One day you not. Once the people are done with your music, you gotta get back to grindin'."

But that's the thing. No one's ever been really "done" with the rapper and producer. And with Main Source, LP has enlisted legendary emcees Jeru the Damaja, Lil' Dap, Big Noyd, Styles P, AZ and more to flesh out his vision. No skits. No songs based around dances. No forced collaborations sprung from the mind of an overeager and clueless A&R. Just Beats. Rhymes. And Life.

The songs on Main Source have been brewing for more than two years, but LP has never been one to rush a product if it's not perfect, preferring to wait until all the ingredients are right before serving. And he knows something about waiting. In 1995, the producer recorded his debut album The LP, only to see Geffen permanently shelve the record due to classic "label politics." (The album would eventually be released by the artist himself in 2002.) Also in 2002, Nas, Q-Tip, Akinyele and Busta Rhymes contributed to LP's sophomore album 1st Class. All the while, though, the in-demand producer continued to lend his sound to like-minded peers.

So if Extra P is so revered, you might ask, how come he's not a household name? The producer will freely admit that throughout his storied career, the music has always come first ahead of anything else.

"I really just wanted the music to speak for me," he recently said. "I might be a fool for saying this, but I'm a music dude. I'm not a hustler. And that's been my down point at some points in my career. I ain't a hustler which is the standard today because all the hustlers got in the industry. I grew up in New York-tradition hip-hop and that's just what I do."

Growing up, the producer's ears were flooded with jazz (from pops), gospel and soul (from mom) & disco and early hip-hop (from sis). As he got older, the Queens native couldn't escape the hip-hop that dominated his borough. Starting off as a DJ (which he still does to this day), the budding producer graduated to pause tapes and, under the tutelage of famed producer Paul C (R.I.P.), drum machines. The rest is history.

It's been two decades since those days, but Professor remains as current and versatile as ever. With Main Source, a legend of the game refuses to rest on his laurels, continuing to add to a canon of work that deserves to be heard by any true hip-hop head.