RIP Guru of Gang Starr and ‘Jazzmatazz’

RIP Guru of Gang Starr and ‘Jazzmatazz’

21 April, 2010 | 1.40AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: gang starr, guru, rip

After battling cancer for a year and spending two months in a coma, the rapper Guru (Keith Elam) has passed away at the age of 43.

Guru’s group Gang Starr, with DJ Premier, helped establish the groundwork for conscious, boom-bap hip-hop in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and he continued to break new ground with his solo debut, 1993’s ‘Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1’. At a time when hip-hop was heavily invested in sampling old funk, soul and jazz records, Guru’s project promoted live musicianship, featuring heavyweight players like Donald Byrd, Roy Ayers, Lonnie Liston Smith, and Ronny Jordan as well as the French rapper MC Solaar.

Gang Starr continued knocking out albums throughout the ‘90s, capping their career with 2003’s ‘The Ownerz’, and Guru revisited the ‘Jazzmatazz’ concept three more times, most recently with 2007’s ‘Jazzmatazz, Vol. 4: The Hip Hop Jazz Messenger: Back to the Future’; his last album was 2009’s ‘Guru 8.0: Lost & Found’.

Guru’s death is clouded by conflicting accounts. At the beginning of March, Guru’s nephew uploaded a YouTube video accusing Guru’s business partner Solar, of 7 Grand Records, of obscuring the circumstances around Guru’s illness and blocking the rapper’s family’s attempts to visit him in the hospital. Then, yesterday, the fan-site DJ Premiere Blog posted a letter, allegedly written by Guru before his death, breaking all ties with DJ Premier, with whom he had feuded for several years, and naming Solar as the rightful bearer of his legacy.

It’s a sad coda to a career spent promoting positivity and progressivism, but no amount of acrimony can obscure Guru’s achievements, helping change the face of hip-hop, pop, and club music.

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