Gang Starr was an American hip hop duo, consisting of Houston -born record producer DJ Premier and Boston , Massachusetts rapper Guru .
31-588: Gang Starr was at its height from 1989 to 2003, and are considered a widely influential MC-and-producer duo in hip hop history. They are recognized for being one of the pioneers of jazz rap active during the golden age of hip hop . Some of their top hits include " Mass Appeal ", "Take It Personal", "Moment of Truth", "Full Clip" and "Above The Clouds". The original Gang Starr group was founded in Morehouse College by three friends from Boston , Massachusetts : Guru (then known as MC Keithy E.) who had planned to be
62-818: A different route of jazz influence in recordings with unusual time signatures and scat -influenced vocals. Though jazz rap had achieved little mainstream success, jazz legend Miles Davis ' final album (released posthumously in 1992), Doo-Bop , featured hip hop beats and collaborations with producer Easy Mo Bee . Jazz musician Branford Marsalis collaborated with Gang Starr's DJ Premier on his Buckshot LeFonque project that same year. Between 1993 and 2000 fellow Gang Starr member Guru released Jazzmatazz , which featured guest appearances from jazz artists such as Lonnie Liston Smith , Freddie Hubbard and Donald Byrd , amongst others. Musical jazz references became less obvious and less sustained, and lyrical references to jazz certainly more rare. However, jazz had been added to
93-471: A new album titled One of the Best Yet , which was released on November 1 that year. The Gang Starr Foundation was a loose collective of various people who have worked closely with the group, through either Guru's now defunct Ill Kid label, DJ Premier's production work or the management company that Gang Starr was represented by, Empire Management. Members of the foundation included Big Shug , Afu-Ra , Jeru
124-550: A rapper/singer, Big Shug as the main MC and DJ Suave D (Shug's younger brother Dana) as their DJ. After Shug was imprisoned, Suave D quit the group, leaving Guru to enlist the services of MC Damo D-Ski and DJ 1, 2 B-Down (also known as Mike Dee) with various producers , such as Donald D , J.V. Johnson or The 45 King helping out. Their earliest recordings were in 1986 where they made various demos. In 1987 and 1988, Gang Starr released three 12" vinyl singles on Wild Pitch Records . In 1989,
155-494: A significant shift in jazz's cultural positioning, elevating it to the status of "serious art music." Influential figures like Wynton Marsalis played a pivotal role in this transformation, advocating for a return to traditional jazz values. Jazz rap's emergence can be seen as an attempt to elevate rap music's status by associating it with jazz's cultural capital and was seen as an alternative to dominant rap subgenres like gangsta and pop rap . This association not only enriched
186-467: A song called "Round Tha World" that was recorded while touring Europe. In 2012 he worked again with Dj Jean Maron for the release of the official remix of "Heavy" a posse cut with M-Dot, Benefit & B.A.M (M.O.P/Lil Fame's cousin). In 2013 Guy appeared in two movies. In the HBO movie " Clear History ," he was door security for the band Chicago . In " The Heat ," starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, he
217-572: Is an American rapper from Boston , Massachusetts , a co-founder of Gang Starr and a member of the Gang Starr Foundation collective. Born in Boston, Cary spent much of his early life in Boston's Mattapan area (known locally as "Murdapan"). Growing up, he forged a friendship with rapper Guru , leading to them eventually founding the group Gang Starr in Morehouse College with Shug's younger brother DJ Suave D. The group disbanded when Shug
248-935: The Native Tongues tended toward jazzy releases: these include the Jungle Brothers ' debut, Straight Out the Jungle (Warlock, 1988), and A Tribe Called Quest 's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm ( Jive , 1990). The Low End Theory has become one of hip hop's most acclaimed albums, and also earned praise from jazz bassist Ron Carter , who played double bass on one track. De La Soul 's Buhloone Mindstate ( Tommy Boy , 1993) featured contributions from Maceo Parker , Fred Wesley , and Pee Wee Ellis , and samples from Eddie Harris , Lou Donaldson , Duke Pearson and Milt Jackson . Queen Latifah and Monie Love were members of Native Tongues also. Also of this period
279-537: The 1970s, the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron placed spoken word and rhymed poetry over jazzy backing tracks. There are also parallels between jazz and the improvised phrasings of freestyle rap . While it drew from these disparate threads, jazz rap did not coalesce as a genre until the late 1980s. At this time , the jazz community was divided between those who appreciated traditional styles and others who embraced newer forms like smooth jazz . This period also marked
310-470: The 1990s, Shug recorded a few 12-inch singles produced by DJ Premier for Payday and Chrysalis , but his first proper solo album, Who's Hard was not released until 2005 and half of the songs were handled by DJ Premier. He signed to New York's Babygrande in 2007, and released his second album, Streetchamp . The album was produced by MoSS and DJ Premier and features guest appearances from DJ Premier and Sean Price . A third solo album, Otherside of
341-485: The Arena (1991), Daily Operation (1992), Hard to Earn (1994) and Moment of Truth (1998) are well respected among underground rap fans and critics. Their track "Jazz Thing" was featured on the soundtrack to Spike Lee 's film Mo' Better Blues . Gang Starr provided a track, "Battle", for the soundtrack of the 2002 movie 8 Mile . After several albums and tours, in late 2002 DJ Premier left Europe to go back to
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#1733093424785372-601: The Damaja , Krumbsnatcha, Bumpy Knuckles , and Group Home . Each episode title of the first season of the Netflix series Luke Cage , based on the Marvel Comics character, was named after a Gang Starr song. Jazz rap Jazz rap (also jazz hop or jazz hip hop ) is a fusion of jazz and hip hop music , as well as an alternative hip hop subgenre, that developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. AllMusic writes that
403-640: The Game , was released in November 2008, and features DJ Premier, Bumpy Knuckles , Billy Danze of M.O.P. , Termanology , Blaq Poet , and Singapore Kane. He performed at the 2009 Boston hemp fest. He is featured on the single "Tap Out", which appears on M-Dot & DJ Jean Maron's 2010 album Run MPC. The video of "tap out" was directed by Steven TAPIA . In 2010 he also collaborated with (artist) Aztech and (producer) Reel Drama on their album Hybrid Genetics. In 2010 he collaborated with west coast hip hop artist Spinz on
434-471: The Rapper all used rhyming, the dozens and jive talk to pepper their broadcasts and were widely copied by white DJs like John Richbourg, Gene Nobles, and Bill Allen during the 1950s, and whose influence on James Brown and other godfathers of rap was formative. Bebop was the backing track that modern jazz credits with being the foundation black appeal radio is based on. Groups making up the collective known as
465-504: The United States. Once again Guru was faced with continuing alone and became involved in a European tour in 2003–04 with an alternate DJ. In 2006, Guru indicated in several interviews that Gang Starr had reached its end. In February 2010, Guru suffered a heart attack , went into a coma, and died on April 19, 2010. DJ Solar, a long-time collaborator of Guru, said Guru chose not to go public with
496-444: The diagnosis of myeloma that was made in 2000. Guru appeared to have fallen out with DJ Premier seven years prior to his death and did "not wish my ex-DJ to have anything to do with my name, likeness, events, tributes, etc." There is speculation that the letter was not written by Guru, but was composed by Solar. The validity of the statement was questioned by Guru's family and his contemporaries. Soon after DJ Premier stated that there
527-492: The genre "was an attempt to fuse African-American music of the past with a newly dominant form of the present, paying tribute to and reinvigorating the former while expanding the horizons of the latter." The rhythm was rooted in hip hop over which were placed repetitive phrases of jazz instrumentation: trumpet, double bass, etc. Groups involved in the formation of jazz rap included A Tribe Called Quest , Digable Planets , De La Soul , Gang Starr , and Jungle Brothers . During
558-496: The group split for the second time and the only member willing to continue under the name was Guru. He got in touch with Houston , Texas native DJ Premier (then known as Waxmaster C) who sent him a beat tape, which Guru liked. He invited DJ Premier to join Gang Starr, relocate with him to Brooklyn and in that same year they released their first single "Words I Manifest" along with the album No More Mr. Nice Guy (1989). In 1990,
589-583: The group was signed to the Chrysalis record label by then A&R director Duff Marlowe, a former DJ and Los Angeles Times rap music critic. The label offered Guru and Premier unlimited artistic license and major-label distribution worldwide, a platform the group used to become one of the most influential hip hop acts of that decade. During their career Gang Starr helped pioneer the New York City hardcore hip hop sound. The Gang Starr catalog, especially Step in
620-711: The hit single " Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) ". Also in 1993, Us3 released Hand on the Torch on Blue Note Records . All samples were from the Blue Note catalogue. The single " Cantaloop " was Blue Note's first gold record. Post- WWII swing and modern jazz had fused with the introduction of Black appeal radio , which attracted a younger audience through its reliance on jive idioms, rhyming, and cadence-laden rap verses. Dizzy Gillespie had pointed to The jives of Dr. Hepcat and rhyming D.J. Daddy-O Daylie as key to popularizing modern jazz. The rise of Top-40 radio on
651-574: The musical texture of hip-hop but also provided a platform for social and political commentary , aligning with jazz's historical role as a voice for African American experiences and struggles. In 1989, Gang Starr released the debut single "Words I Manifest", sampling Dizzy Gillespie 's 1952 "Night in Tunisia", and Stetsasonic released "Talkin' All That Jazz", sampling Lonnie Liston Smith . Gang Starr's debut LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy ( Wild Pitch , 1989), and their track "Jazz Thing" ( CBS , 1990) for
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#1733093424785682-507: The palette of hip hop producers, and its influence continued throughout the 1990s whether behind the gritty street-tales of Nas ( Illmatic , Columbia , 1994), or backing the more bohemian sensibilities of acts such as the Roots , the Nonce , and Common . Since 2000 it can be detected in the work of producers such as J. Rawls , Fat Jon and Madlib . A project somewhat similar to Buckshot Le Fonque
713-473: The soundtrack of Mo' Better Blues , further popularized the jazz rap style. In 1992 Eric B & Rakim used wood bass on " Don't Sweat the Technique ". Digable Planets ' 1993 release Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) was a hit jazz rap record sampling the likes of Don Cherry , Sonny Rollins , Art Blakey , Herbie Mann , Herbie Hancock , Grant Green , and Rahsaan Roland Kirk . It spawned
744-464: The strength of the rapping DJs in this period of radio's rebirth among black youth led to the wider use of language and syntax popularizing rap. Muhammad Ali 's phrasing to the press in the early part of his career was born of listening to black radio of the 1950s, which was often white radio announcers speaking slang "jive" and imitating black announcers while withholding the fact on air of their backgrounds. Pioneering DJs Al Benson , Nat D. , and Jack
775-632: The studio. Spanning from 1993 to 2007, its four volumes assembled jazz luminaries like Freddie Hubbard , Donald Byrd , Courtney Pine , Herbie Hancock , Kenny Garrett and Lonnie Liston Smith , and hip hop performers such as Kool Keith , MC Solaar , Common , and Guru's Gang Starr colleague DJ Premier . Madlib's 2003 release Shades of Blue paid homage to his Blue Note Records roots, where he samples from Blue Note's archives. The album also contains interpretations of Blue Note classics performed by Yesterdays New Quintet. Big Shug Cary Guy (born December 13, 1961), better known as Big Shug ,
806-462: Was Brooklyn Funk Essentials , a New York–based collective who also released their first LP in 1994. Prince himself contributed to the genre on some songs from 1991 to 1992, as well as with his New Power Generation album Gold Nigga , which mixed jazz, funk and hip-hop and was released very confidentially. One hip hop project which continued to maintain a direct connection to jazz was Guru 's Jazzmatazz series, which used live jazz musicians in
837-735: Was "Tough Guy #2." He also appeared in Boston-based films "The Town", and "Black Mass". Big Shug released his most recent studio album "Triple OGzus" in March 2015. Shug's upcoming project is entitled "The Living Room Project" according to his Instagram page. As of January 2019, there is no word on the release date of the album. In January 2019, Big Shug announced his new album will be entitled “The Diamond Report” while “The Living Room Project” has been rumored to have been shelved or pushed off but Shug has not confirmed this. A promotional single entitled "Still Big" for Shug's new album coming out later that month
868-534: Was Toronto-based Dream Warriors ' 1991 release And Now the Legacy Begins ( Island ). It produced the hit singles "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" and "Wash Your Face in My Sink". The first of these was based on a loop taken from Quincy Jones ' " Soul Bossa Nova ", while the second sampled Count Basie 's 1967 rendition of " Hang On Sloopy ". Meanwhile, Los Angeles hip hop group Freestyle Fellowship pursued
899-403: Was a "posthumous Gang Starr CD/DVD project in the works," and most likely to have been released in 2014, but nothing was released. DJ Premier confirmed in late 2015 that he was working on a Gang Starr biopic with the cooperation of Guru's sister, Patricia Elam. In 2019, DJ Premier released a new single under the Gang Starr name entitled "Family and Loyalty" featuring J. Cole , to be followed with
930-518: Was imprisoned and eventually Guru moved to New York , where he added DJ Premier to Gang Starr. On his release, Shug again hooked up with Guru, joined the Gang Starr Foundation, and contributed to each of Gang Starr's albums, beginning with Hard to Earn in 1994 (on "F.A.L.A."). He also appeared on DJ Krush 's Meiso in 1995 as well as "The Militia" from 1998's Moment of Truth , and contributed to Guru's Jazzmatazz albums. During
961-448: Was released on October 7. On October 25, 2019, Big Shug released his seventh studio album "The Diamond Report". On the same day, Shug released the first single from the album "EMF" which was produced by long time friend of Guy, DJ Premier. The following week, Big Shug was featured on Gang Starr's newest album " One of the Best Yet " on two tracks, "One of the Best Yet (Big Shug Interlude)" and "Take Flight (Militia, Pt. 4)". Big Shug's music