Gang Starr

If, as the saying goes, membership has its privileges, then ownership commands unequivocal respect. Such is the case with Gang Starr, one of the most revered, durable, and dependable acts hip hop has ever witnessed. The group’s career has lasted a remarkable fourteen years, reflecting a longevity unimaginable for any recording artist, much less one negotiating the treacherous and often uncertain terrain of rap music. And while other similarly road-tested rap outfits languish in semi-retirement, the reps of Gang Starr’s frontman, the velvet-voiced, self-proclaimed “king of monotone” Guru, and production svengali supreme DJ Premier grow bigger and stronger with each successive release. Simply put, Gang Starr is contemporary rap music’s greatest purveyor of pure, undiluted sounds that rock parties with soul, creativity and integrity. It’s a crown the duo lays explicit and wholly appropriate claim to with their highly anticipated seventh album, The Ownerz.

“The concept of The Ownerz involves how people are renting and leasing hip hop,” explains Guru. “At this point in the game there’s a lot of people exploiting it, and calling the shit they’re doing ‘hip hop’ even though their music is watered down. But we feel strongly about the love that we have for this music, and that we’re true owners of a purer form.”

Reiterates Premier: “Most times when you borrow something, people say, ‘Make sure you put it back.’ We don’t have to do that because all of this belongs to us. We utilize hip hop like we own it and we don’t misuse the art form.”

Art is the echelon Guru and Premier have elevated their distinctive brand of hardcore sonics and intelligent, street savvy lyrics to via classic compositions such as the cinematic “Just To Get A Rep,” the infectious “DWYCK,” the defiant “Mass Appeal,” and the deft “You Know My Steez,” and acclaimed LP offerings like their twin masterpieces, Step In The Arena (1990) and Daily Operation (1992), the gritty Hard To Earn (1994), and the transcendent Moment Of Truth (1998). The Ownerz continues in this fine tradition, demonstrating the lost art of conceiving and executing a compelling album’s worth of material (rather than rap’s currently fashionable m.o. of two hit singles and fifty-plus minutes of filler) with an impressive line-up of guests that includes such noted ghetto celebs as Snoop Dogg, Fat Joe, Jadakiss and M.O.P.

Look no further than the LP’s dynamic first single to set The Ownerz’s fundamental thematic tone. Forthrightly described by Guru in the song’s lyric as, “some new product from a known team,” “Skills” assuredly lives up to its title—a potent marriage of proclamations of hip hop superiority (“Mic skills tight drills like Michael Jilz/ Like when he rifle the pill/ It’s how I stifle the ill/ Slide off kid/ And let a grown man finesse it/ we’re bold and impressive/ that ol’ I Manifest shit”) and a club-friendly bounce rhythm that flaunts its funky sensations without pandering to the lowest common denominator. The LP’s lead track, “Put Up Or Shut Up,” exudes further confidence as Guru and fellow Boston product Krumb Snatcha address phoniness in all its shapes and forms—from “thugs” with false street reps to emcees lacking abilities to cats fronting on their clout in the music industry—over Premier’s echo-ey bass hits and Psycho-like strings. Another fine exhibition of verbal tenacity, “Rite Where U Stand” promises certain defeat for all those hoping to test the battle rhymes of Guru and guest vocalist Jadakiss (whose couplet, “Why do I spend all my dough on smoke?/ Because I’m currently a slave to Interscope,” adds another brain-staining quotable to his repertoire) over an almost whimsical, fluttering slide guitar and piano melody from Premier.

Of course, what’s made Gang Starr’s catalog (from the soul searching “Who’s Gonna Take The Weight” to Guru’s compelling autobiographical narratives “The Planet” and “JFK 2 LAX”) so vital over the years is the group’s ability to address issues that go beyond mere rap competition with insight and wisdom. With the confessional “Deadly Habits,” the album’s emotional centerpiece, another chapter in this facet of Gang Starr’s career is written. Preem’s alternately staccato and sustained clavinet chords set the stage for Guru’s sing-songy chorus, a stanza that reveals the pressures of coping with modern life in startlingly honest terms: “They will never know/ What I do to get by and the many times I almost died/ They will never know/ All the reasons that I flip and why I gotta keep an extra clip/ They will never know/ What this stress is like, and why I’m on point ready to fight/ They will never know/ All the pressure and pain, don’t give a fuck if they think less of me.” Guru’s lyrics adeptly navigate both his own personal deadly habits and those of others very much in the public forum, at one point asking as only Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal can, “America your deadly habits got us all in the mix/ War without, war within, holy war, mortal sin/ Tell me what’s the origin?”

Elsewhere, Gang Starr hits home via anecdotal verses like that on “Sabotage.” Inspired by the real life episodes of a teenaged drug kingpin in Guru’s native Boston during the ’80s crack epidemic, the song’s first verse describes a relationship between two crime partners that crumbles under mistrust and megalomania. The incendiary “Riot Akt” also focuses on the volatile nature of urban existence under “martial law in the streets,” while the thoughtful “In This Life,” featuring Snoop Dogg, details everything from the respect younger cats feel for O.G.s, to Guru’s laments that the prison system gets more attention than public schools. As Preem explains, “With what’s going on in the world, you could be a soldier just dealing with what’s going on within your own block.”

Fortunately, the weight of such concerns never prevents The Ownerz’s from remaining a thoroughly exhilarating musical trip, particularly on “Who Got Gunz,” with Fat Joe and M.O.P.—a ferocious posse cut on which the participants trade lines with rapid fire intensity (and on which Guru deadpans, “Sick society’s got Guru protecting his fam/ Fuck Prudential, I got my own protection plan”). The third in the fan favorite “Militia” series, “Capture,” reunites the group with microphone heavyweights Big Shug and Freddie “Bumpy Knuckles” Foxxx for another thrilling ride. And “Same Team No Games” finds them sharing mic time with promising underground protégés NYG’z and H. Stax. Guru and Preem even revisit the macked out hijinks of their 1992 classic “Ex Girl To The Next Girl” with a new composition called “Nice Girl, Wrong Place” abetted by the fluid, R. Kelly-meets-Steve Arrington-style crooning of talented Kansas City-based newcomer Boy Big.

“That song is about when you see a girl around the way thuggin’ it,” utters the Ill Kid with a smile, “but there’s something sweet about her and it’s like, what are you doing here? Or maybe she’s a girl in a strip club, or in a diner, or any number of different scenarios.”

What these musically varied vignettes add up to is a pretty specific scenario for The Ownerz: it is as well-rounded an effort as any Gang Starr has generated, a unique product destined to garner satisfaction from the street crowd reaction, one as worldly as it is stirring.

Says Premier: “I’m 35 years old, man. What are we supposed to do, be there rhyming about how much ice we got? Kids can rhyme about. ‘I’m pushing a new Bentley,’ because they wanna brag that they got something. I had shit already. I had bracelets and the lion rings and the gold fronts in my mouth when I was 20. It was cool. I loved it.

“But as you mature your music’s gotta mature. It can still be raw and soulful because that’s why AC/DC is still out there doing their thing, that’s why the O’Jays still do shows. We make that type of classical stuff. That’s what grown men do.”

For the uninitiated, the story of Gang Starr’s road to respect and maturity is as classic as the duo’s actual canon of material. In the mid-’80s, Boston-bred Guru (né Keith Elam) had re-located his life to the Big Apple after graduating from Atlanta’s Morehouse College in the hopes of making it in the music business. Guru had already released a handful of singles on New York independent label Wild Pitch Records under the name Gang Starr but was still without a full-time musical partner. One day, while chilling in the Wild Pitch offices, he happened upon a demo from a Texas-based group calling itself ICP that was produced by a DJ/ college undergrad calling himself Waxmaster C (né Christopher Martin). Impressed by what he heard, Guru phoned C in appreciation of his work. Months later, when Wild Pitch failed to sign ICP and C’s rhyme partner abandoned the group for the navy, C took up Guru’s offer to join him in Gang Starr.

Working together in New York during C’s Thanksgiving vacation from college, a track (“Manifest”—a sublime fusion of the melodic and rhythmic innovations of Dizzy Gillespie, James Brown, and Kool Herc) was completed, somewhere along the way C changed his name to Premier (to better summate his ambition to be the first and best in his chosen field) and the rest is history, albeit one still very much in progress. Witness GS’s first two gold certifications on its most recent two albums, Moment Of Truth and 1999’s Full Clip, 1989-1999: A Decade Of Gang Starr.

“It’s kind of like being a phenomenon in this game,” marvels Guru about he and Premier’s late-blooming commercial success, and growing legion of disciples. “Usually in music you’re supposed to sell less as you get older, but as we get older we sell more and the audience is getting even bigger.

“It’s a blessing,” he continues. “Because I remember what it took for me to come here to New York from Boston with $1500, a duffel bag and a dream. There have been times when I’ve been frustrated about this business, but I look at it now and I’m like, shit, at least I’m still here. I don’t take it for granted at all. I seen a lot of cats take being in hip hop for granted and then poof, they’re gone.”

Evicted from the game, no less—sans equity. With its years of hard work and dedication, Gang Starr, by contrast, has paid the cost to be the boss. Yes, ownership has its privileges and then some.