The music video for "AEAO," the magnetic new collaboration from South Korea's Dynamic Duo and legendary American hip-hop producer DJ Premier, released on July 15, begins with the image of a needle falling on a vinyl record.

This is no coincidence.

DJ Premier was a harbinger of hip-hop's golden era of the late 1980s, a New York-centric distillation of what made the genre pure, the skillful execution in the interconnected realms of rapping, breakdancing, graffiti and spinning records.

As one of the most high-profile Korean crossover collaborations of the year, "AEAO," bears ample fruit as a meeting of minds, continents, eras and styles.

It was 1989 when Premier became one half of the seminal hip-hop duo Gang Starr, where he cemented his status as one of the genre's most innovative beatmakers of all-time. After Gang Starr's demise in 2005, the producer continued to work with rap giants throughout the years like Jay Z, Nas and The Notorious B.I.G.

But rather than purely working with A-list talent, Premier has continued to seek out new artists and new frontiers. It is presumably this same adventurous that spirit led him to pursue a collaboration with Dynamic Duo.

Conversely, the fact that Dynamic Duo chose to align themselves with DJ Premier signals a reverence for hip-hop's founding fathers. The pair are no newcomers to the rap game, topping the South Korean charts for the last 10 years.

The track opens with some vintage Primo, majestic horns and choral samples woven together in a rich but repetitious tapestry. Then there's that beat, the definition of a head-nodder.

As if to affirm that this international meeting of the minds is not a redefinition of hip-hop's DNA but rather a reiteration, Premier drops a sample from American rapper AZ, "and the game won't change, it's the same old thing."

Over this swaggering backdrop, Dynamic Duo's Choiza and Gaeko spit rhymes about their longstanding connection as artists, recalling Missy Elliott's rap about her work with Timbaland, "we so tight that you get our styles tangled."

With verbal rhythms that are similarly syncopated, Gaeko's style contains a razor's edge of aggressiveness, while Choiza's deeper baritone stands in cool contrast.

Both rappers spin wild strings of syllables in a rapid-fire blast that feels more modern than old school. But their ability to ride the beat without getting arbitrarily verbose or messily garbled speaks to their respect for the artform.

Choiza's turn at the mic on the first and third verses are confident and ride DJ Premier's classic-sounding beat with verve to spare, but it's Gaeko's verse that really grabs listeners. His agitated approach sounds a little similar to Kendrick Lamar's now-legendary, friend-and-foe-eviscerating guest spot on Jay Electronica's "Control."

It's biting and fierce without sounding even the least bit off the rails.

The fact that Gaeko pivots directly out of his verse into a show-stopping sung chorus makes his delivery all the more remarkable. For those who aren't fluent in Korean (much less rapid, aggressively rapped Korean), DJ Premier posted a translation of lyrics on his blog, and it's clear why; these are bars to be proud of.

Dynamic Duo are by turns humble, hopeful and boastful, all qualities found in old school rappers like Q-Tip, C.L. Smooth or DJ Premier's Gang Starr lyricist, the late, great Guru.

"AEAO" speaks to the power of hip-hop's legacy while recognizing the potency of the new. I hope to hear more music coming from this unlikely trio.

Check out the Dynamic Duo and DJ Premier collaboration "AEAO" RIGHT HERE

Jeff Tobias is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and writer currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Most recently, he has been researching the history of tuning systems and working on his jump shot.