This summer, EPMD is going on Ice-Tโs the Art Of Rhyme Tour. The Long Island, New York duo of Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith will join Public Enemy, Mobb Deep, Naughty By Nature, and others for eight dates across the United States. However, when the gold-certified union gets off the road, Parrish says they have more in store for fans.
In an interview with The Live From The Basement show, the MC/producer also known simply as PMD says that his group has some upcoming โbusinessโ indeed.
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โEverything takes time to come full circle. [EPMD is] in a good space right now, gettinโ a lot of stuff accomplished,โ reveals PMD at approximately 26:00 into the interview. โFor the first half of the career, from Strictly Business, Unfinished Business, and Business As Usual, I did a lot of that production. So I kind of needed a break.โ All three of those mentioned releases went gold, during the duoโs transition from Fresh/Sleeping Bag to Def Jam Records. Based on PMDโs account, his partner, Erick Sermon would step in at a greater role behind the boards, beginning with 1992โs gold-certified Business Never Personal, and guide the sound of the group through its following three albums. โE-Dubb came up, and then he got his production on. And then he took a break. So we really gettinโ in sync to really come with that music and vibe thatโs expected of us, โcause thatโs all the Hip-Hop community really wants to see.โ As with groups like A Tribe Called Quest and Eric B. & Rakim, EPMDโs production credits were often assigned to the group, above a sole entity.
Parrish adds that to get an understanding of the groupโs head-space in creating in 2016, they can look back to 1990โs โIโm Mad.โ The artist then recites a slightly edited version of his famed Business As Usual verse. In the interview, Parrish confirmed, โ[Fans are] gonna get an album, a tour, and some EPMD in yaโ face.โ
This news follows a December 2015 report that the pair was back in the studio.
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EPMD last released We Mean Business in late 2008. It was the duoโs first of its seven albums to not be certified gold, or debut on the Top 200.
Elsewhere in the interview, Parrish discusses his introduction to Hip-Hop, the earliest days of EPMD, meeting Das EFX, and just how thorough DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Princeโs posse kept it on those 1980s tours.
