Gang Starr’s first album in sixteen years is a gift to old-school rap fans. Read our review of ‘One of the Best Yet’
However, the 16 years that followed were marked by a labyrinth of legal and interpersonal troubles. Guru died in 2010 at age 48. Rap rewrote its narrative over and over. Gang Starr’s legacy did live on, but mostly in underground artists like Joey Bada$$, Flatbush Zombies, the Griselda Records axis, Your Old Droog, Mayhem Lauren and more. . stopped making his intensely funky, Nineties-head comfort food beats.
The illusion does get shattered, however. Royce paints a vivid picture about rapping with Guru’s ashes on the mixing board. Ne-Yo is beamed in from a post-Gang Starr generation, and J. Cole sounds especially anachronistic since he’s kicking a very 2019 slightly out-of-the-pocket flow. Though all of these vocal tracks have never been heard before, Guru originally recorded them to different beats, as opposed to a catalog where his flowa Premo beat.
Single “Family and Loyalty” is the album’s highlight, Guru rapping about over a lush, melancholy Premo beat about keeping his loved ones close. It’s a sad reality that one of rap’s greatest duos had to be reunited like this, but the music speaks for itself.
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