Gang Starr: You Know Their Steez

Gang Starr is a two-man group: an MC and a DJ. Typically, in this scenario, the MC would be the face, the breakout star. But with Gang Starr, it's the DJ who supplies the duo with the most credibility and fame. Guru and DJ Premier form this always interesting, forever innovative underground assembly. It's a magnificent melding of talents and voices. Their synergy is pitch-perfect. They're a flawless coupling that has redefined and reinvented the hip-hop genre, due mostly to Premier and his style of beat making. In simplest terms, he invokes some jazzy flavor, hard, effective drum loops and his patented scratching and sampling, which he uses masterfully because of his photographic memory of hip-hop history. The beats are never intrusive. They're always effortless and always simply designed, so as not to distract the listener from the rapper. Most importanly, the beats fit the words, the mood of the songs and the style of the guests, if any, on the tracks. If MOP is starring alongside Guru, the beat hardens and becomes more aggressive. If KC and Jojo are featured, the beat mellows and takes a more leisurely pace. The song is a puzzle, it seems, to Premier, and his beat is an important corner piece. Everything fits snugly together.

In rap, sometimes beats are overproduced and oversynthesized. (See P.Diddy and some of Kanye's work for perfect examples.) Premier does such a adroit job composing his music that his beats, combined with Guru's lyrics, create a perfect synthesis, where the listener can be wowed by the words and fascinated by the music.

As forGuru, he's a former Bostonian who previously worked with another DJ before moving to New York. He initially experienced no success with his former running mate, so when Guru decided to press on, continuing to cling to his romantic dream of being a rap star, his DJ decided not to join him. In NY, Guru met Premier, and they promptly released No More Mr. Nice Guy in 1989, which contained outside production from Mark the 45 King. But Guru and Premier teamed up for good with Step in the Arena in 1991, an album that exhibited a sound and flow unique to rap at the time. They were finally on the map.

Guru isn't an "ooh, ahh" rapper, meaning, he won't blow you away lyrically with a prowess akin to Mos Def, Common, Kweli, Eminem, Immortal Technique or Nas. But he's an excellent, solid, underrated rapper in his own right. His talents are not more evident than on Moment of Truth, the finest Gang Starr album, and one of the selections on my Top 5 Hip-Hop Albums of All-Time list. Released in 1998, Moment is 20 tracks strong with only two throw-aways, The Mall and In Memory Of ..., a song dedicated to remembering those who have passed away. The intersticials and skits are rare, but bothersome. Other than that, the album boasts 18 quality songs. I won't review every single song here; rather, I'll highlight, well, the highlights.

The album opens with perhaps Gang Starr's best song in their illustrious body of work, You Know My Steez. There's a 20-second intro to start the song before Premier's heavy drums kick in. Guru takes over and excoriates the state of rap, as he explains succinctly why Gang Starr exhibits true hip-hop. Guru says, "On the microphone you know that I'm one of the best yet/Some punks, ain't paid all of their debts yet/Tryin to be fly, ridin high on the jet-set/With juvenile rhymes makin fake-ass death threats." On Work, Premier mixes heavy and muted drum work, while looping a few piano strikes. It's a quick track, but musically, more than lyrically, it stands out on the album. It's a rare case of Premier's work upstaging Guru's work because, as has been said, Premier is more concerned with the rapper being heard than with the beat being noticed.

Why is Premier such a unique DJ? Well, one example appears on the track Above the Clouds. Premier samples part of a President John F. Kennedy speech to open the track. This song features Inspectah Deck of the Wu-Tang Clan, which means, lyrically, this is one of the more superior tracks on the album. As Guru says, this track is an "Illustrious feature, narrator you select/Accompanied by Deck plus the DJ you respect." A Jamaican sounding female speaks two lines to open the album's title track, Moment of Truth. The mellow beat provides ample footing for the heady material covered in the song. Guru's first four lines provide a sound synopsis of the song: "They say it's lonely at the top, in whatever you do/You always gotta watch motherfuckers around you/Nobody's invincible, no plan is foolproof/We all must meet our moment of truth."

Premier laces a simple piano/drum/bass beat again on What I'm Here 4 later in the album. Guru talks about shunning greed and money for a more intellectual approach to hip-hop. "I take action the minute that the crowd gets hype/I'm type crashin, down like a meteorite/I'm bogartin, mics and whole stages/Destroying MC's dreams, from words to whole pages/Their rapbooks, look more like scrapbooks/with their fictional fairytales and frail ass hooks." On My Advice 2 You, Premier goes soft again so Guru pen a more introspective rap that chronicles the time he spent with his former DJ, and the undying friendship they share. Guru says, "You remember what happened last time, when you got knocked/Doin your thing, sewin shit up on the block/You need to stop, fore you get caught again/or you get shot and I lose another friend." Even Premier adds simple, but substantive and powerful, samples. He uses "Any man with the plan is precise with his life" and "Think twice."

Betrayal opens with 40 seconds of a phone conversation between Premier and an unidentified person. This track could've done without the boring intro because it's such an important song, which features Scarface, the Texas-based rapper. The song covers two stories -- one by Guru and one by Scarface -- about the traditional back stabbing and pettiness that happens on the street. Guru raps:

Check the horror scene
The kid was like twelve or thirteen
Never had the chance like other kids to follow dreams
Watched his father catch two in the dome and to the spleen
Nothin' but blood everywhere, these streets are mean
They spared his life, but killed his moms and his sister Jean
Of course over some drug shit
His pops was on some ill-out, spill your guts out, on some thug shit
Didn't know his boys was on some shady ass no love shit
His pops got played out though, with silencers they laid him out yo
Took his stash and all the cash and left 'em, tied up on the couch yo
With tape over his mouth, so he couldn't cry out
cause his dad was the nigga with clout
Survival of the fittest so they split his wig no doubt
Despite the stocking caps he noticed the same cat, who used to give him dough
and taught him to use the same gat
Supposed to be an Uncle, fam and all that
He could tell it was him 'cause he wore the same slacks, he wore when
he took him to Meadowlands racetrack
Why did he flip and go out like that?
It's called betrayal

Next Time ends the album, and Premier's beat, helped with horns and a bass, seems like it was created specifically to close a record.

Gang Starr has produced five albums, most recently, The Ownerz in 2003. It marked their last effort as a duo, and the rap world will sorely miss this magnificent tandem. Guru is progressing with his solo work, and Premier is working on mix tapes and full-length albums. He'll also continue to produce tracks for other artists, including mainstays Nas and MOP. But it's sad to know that Guru and Premier are no longer together. Surely, their break-up sent shockwaves through the underground, but in the mainstream world of rap music, it was barely a blip on the radar. Gang Starr valued music and wordsmanship. That's more than can be said about a majority of today's rap acts. Here's hoping Premier and Guru rekindle their magic sometime soon in the future.

Gang Starr Discography (Ranking out of five stars):

-- No More Mr. Nice Guy (N/A)
-- Step in the Arena (***)
-- Daily Operation (***)
-- Hard to Earn (****)
-- Moment of Truth (****1/2)
-- The Ownerz (****)