Damn did I love Gang Starr at one point, personally thought of Guru as one of the top five MCs of all-time. One thing that's lost in modern hip hop is that MC/producer tag teamsmanship, with producer generally also being a DJ in those days. I guess it's sort of come back around because we do get all these pretty interesting projects where an MC does a whole project with a single producer. I don't know, I feel like Illmatic tricked people into thinking having a multitude of producers over a project was a good idea all the time, but not every project does it like Illmatic did.
Anyways, Guru's end of life where he was sick and all caught up in an abusive friendship/relationship with MC Solar, that's some wild shit, but also not wild because it happens to way more people than we realize. But at one point I remember constantly thinking how the sign of a dope MC was when they get snippets of their lines sampled for hook for someone else's song. That was gonna be Guru at one point - like on par with some of the all-time greats. But the wheels came off that shit. He got separated from Premier, lost that hot tag teamsmanship, and ended up paired with MC Solar, which ultimately ruined the last years of his life.
This song carried me through a bad relationship or two. I still got the 12-inch single in fact. In the old heads arguing about classics, I put Gang Starr's Daily Operation up there with almost anything. RIP Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal.
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