Day 12, Gang Starr - Moment of Truth

Gang Starr is made up of MC Guru and DJ Premier. They hold a high place in the New York hip-hop “underground” scene of the mid 90s (but I was glad to hear Guru hails from Boston, my home town). They are raw, funky, jazzy, even playful at times, but they do not go too far from their roots. They sound a lot more old-school than they really are, too. Even though Moment of Truth was released in 1998, it sounds a lot closer to A Tribe Called Quest’s 1993 release Low End Theory than Jay-Z’s 1998 release Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life.

But Premier and Guru both have very distinct styles which doubly sets them apart from other artists of their era. First off, Premier is a sampling god. But he is not over-the-top, overactive, or showy. Unlike some of the modern sampling masters like MadLib or DJ Shadow, he doesn't overdo it with flair and rarely deviates from the beat. Some of the songs off of Moment of Truth don’t have a real hook or chorus, so the song relies on Premier’s cuts from other hip-hop songs or from old Motown samples to fill in the space. Check out “You Know My Steeze” to see what I'm talking about. It is sample-heavy, but straightforward enough to keep a strong foundation. This sets a wonderful landscape for Guru to run around in.

But Guru does very little running, and a lot more lounging. His flow is real slow, especially compared to other powerhouse songs of 1998: “Still Not a Player,” by Big Pun, or Jay-Z’s “Nigga What, Nigga Who.” Guru is unique in that he takes the time to enunciate every syllable of every word, without a lot of filler or fudging to make rhymes fit. This vocal approach was a lot more common back with groups like Tribe, or even NWA. However, since Guru’s lines are often complete sentences, and with his precise diction, he can sometimes get a little jumbled. But I think that is what makes Guru so great. His flow seems slightly vulnerable, like you are not sure how is going to take it, or if he is really going to make it work. There are examples all over the album where he will be rapping a line, get half way through the phrase and realize that he doesn’t have enough syllables left to fill up the bar, so he just rests and picks it back up a beat and a half later. Super funky.

Gang Starr is a great to listen to when you want some solid, funky, stripped down hip-hop, and not something too abrasive with arbitrary gun blasts thrown around.

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