This week’s Throwback Tuesday features Gang Starr the duo of Guru and DJ Premier
Gang starr – Royalty
That video for sure sums up the hippest of the hoppest royalty beats that Primo could produce showcasing Latimore‘s – “Let’s Do It in Slow Motion” being slightly sped up on the early on samples of the track and then crisp vinyl scratch. It also helped for sure that Guru has always been a grand master of rapping lyrics and flow.
FK – DWYCK remix
While this isn’t the original at all, FK really does a great job at remixing that original DJ Premier beat and working it out into a more electronic dance like track then the original. This track is just full of flavoring of modern and old hiphop sounds.
Rekapper – Chaos X Overcircle (feat. Guru & Riow Arai)
One of the original remixes I did in fact one of the first songs I mashed up. In typical fashion, I only figured out these two tracks worked so precisely together when accidentally listening to both of them at the same time, between my desktop and it’s sets of monitors and my laptop.
Gang Starr – Moment of Truth
One of the deeper cuts from Gang Starr in the sense that “life is a constant war between good and evil”. Alot of Nujabes deeper cuts were modeled after this Premier beat in the sense of the development from an MPC and all sampled from a quite short cut of
Billy Paul – Let’s Fall In Love All Over Again:
Gang Starr – Just to Get a Rep
This is one of those tracks were these samples have been such gold you hear it almost everywhere now on modern tracks, even as pieces of cartoon intro’s and network samples. Factoring that the sample came from Jean-Jacques Perrey’s E.V.A. it should have been expected to be overused in the Funk and New Age styling and sounds, but to find it’s perfect use behind Guru’s golden lines helped this track become an instant classic.
Gang Starr – Above the Cloud
One track that cannot be forgotten has to be Above the Clouds, blame it on the passing of Guru (R.I.P) but the funky strings sound are just another crazy medium you hear throughout modern hiphop that definitely was styled from this track.
Guru – Le Bien, Le Mal
Last but by far not least and one of Guru’s earlier tracks had to have been Le Bien, La Mal (The Good The Bad) with MC Solar, which has just the best stylings of funky fusion into hiphop and rap with the funky horn lines all smashed closer together on tape or by samples.