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GANG
STARR /INTERVIEW ISSUE 57
With the exception of a select few well-maintained producers,
DJs and MCs, there isn’t really that many hip hop
acts who can claim to have stood the test of time as
long as Gang Starr. Formed back in 1989 by a young Keith
Elam and Christopher Martin, better known to most as
simply Guru and DJ Premier, in Brooklyn, Gang Starr
have gone on to produce some of hip hop’s finest
moments while in the process, redefining the genre’s
parameters with the deft use of jazz-based samples and
methods. You’ve only to flick from early classics
like ‘Manifest’ and ‘Take It Personal’
through to ‘Who’s Gonna Take The Weight?’,
‘Jazz Thing’, ‘Mass Appeal’, ‘You
Know My Steez’ and the anthemic ode to Big L on
‘Full Clip’ for conclusive proof. Meanwhile,
Guru’s ongoing ‘Jazzmatazz’‚ project
explores further musical territories, Premier’s
heavily-in-demand production duties have now become
an institution in themselves and, last but not least,
Gang Starr’s long-awaited sixth studio album ‘The
Ownerz’ is out now.
How you doing, Guru?
“Good, man, very good. It’s been crazy over
the last few months with the promotion for the new album,
but at the same time you’ve gotta love it. If I
hadn’t been so fortunate to be in this position
life could have turned out a whole lot different. I
could have been working for UPS or even McDonald’s,
so yeah, I’m definitely one of the lucky ones who
made it through.”
As a kid growing up in Boston, what do you think it
was that first inspired you musically?
“To be honest it goes even further back than that.
Way back in Kindergarten, I’d already started playing
with all the musical instruments that were lying around;
drums, xylophones, even a little piano. They had it
all and I was always messing with it, trying to learn
everything, all at the same time, hehe! When I was at
home though, some of the first music I ever heard came
in the form of a lot of jazz influences; people like
Sonny Rollins and even Nancy Wilson. My sister bought
all of the early Jackson Five shit; tracks like ‘ABC’
and ‘I Want You Back’ and that was when I
started doing my little dance routines around the house.
We’d go over to my grandmother’s and she’d
want me and my cousins to get up and either sing or
do a dance for her. I’d was only one who actually
got up and performed.”
If things were going so well then what made you leave
Roxbury, Massachusetts for New York?
“We’d spent a lot of our time in Roxbury and
Boston, y’know; doing our thing and beginning to
get a little rep for ourselves, but I needed to move
on. I didn’t want to be a local yokel any more,
and we’d done as much as we could; we’d battled
all of the people that there was to physically battle,
so the time had come to move on to something new; New
York. I’d saved up about $1500, had my duffle-bag
and went there with a dream. That was it. At the same
time, Shug had got himself locked up as he was wild
back in those days, so it gave me more of an excuse
to just move out.”
You both kept in touch the whole time he was on lock-down
though?
“Yeah, he used to write to me from prison, right
up until he got let out. After I’d hooked up with
(DJ) Premier a little later on, I promised Shug that
I’d introduce them to each other when he was released,
and here we are today; all of us still together. You
have to remember that we run with the same team of guys
that we were rolling with when we first came to New
York and linked up with all of those Brooklyn cats.
Things like that keep us all grounded. When I first
got to New York I started looking in papers like the
Village Voice to find the telephone numbers of record
labels to shop my demo to. There was a lot of people
who weren’t interested, some even sent me my demos
back (laughs), but I managed to get in touch with the
guys at Wild Pitch, so I played them my stuff and they
said they were interested in what I was doing.”
You’d been working with Mark ‘The 45’
King prior to this?
“That’s right. We did a few tracks together
and he taught me a lot about production, which helped
me out a lot. I still remember those studio lessons
even to this day. I have to big people like Mark up
as he’s a legend in his own right. He’s a
very humble guy; quiet, funny and just content with
doing his own thing.”
Going back to your first two albums; ‘No More Mr.
Nice Guy’ and ‘Daily Operation’, and
even through to ‘The Ownerz’, it has always
seemed like yourself and Premier have been out there
on your own. You’ve done your thing since day one
and not followed anyone else but yourselves?
“Yeah, but I have to admit that there’s been
times when I’ve ended up being so frustrated by
being the front-man of the group. I think that that
frustration comes from the old scenario of the popularity
vs. the sales of records. You have people thinking that
you’re richer than you actually are, just because
of an image that they have. The same sort of jealousy
exists with the underground artists as well as the platinum
sellers. Anyway, the main thing for myself and Premier
over the years has been to take the anger and the frustration
and put it back into our music as a positive outlet.
For a lot of the time he has always been the one to
balance us both out as he was like, ‘Fuck the rest
of ‘em, we’re doing it the right way.’
He knew that, in time, we’d see the fruits of our
labour and that mattered more than just the sales of
our records.”
At the same time, your own hip hop influences are right
across the board!
“That’s exactly it as that’s what we’ve
been about since day one. Whether it’s people like
Nas or the consciousness of Talib Kweli, Mos Def and
Common, and I’ve still got a lot of time for 50
Cent. Your tastes have to represent. This is what makes
up Gang Starr; hip hop, street knowledge, intellect
and spirituality - the whole survival pack.”
Check: www.gangstarronline.com
Words by Swax Mciver.
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