Make It Drizzle: Guru & Solar [Interview - HHNLive]
Published WorkPublished September 19, 2007 at 11:23 PM No Comments
“This is a scenario when the champ comes back and knocks the other dude out, and then he’s the champ for all time and he comes back with a new team. Solar’s my new team – we’re the new team.”
Guru is known for his partnerships: most notably with DJ Premier to complete the legendary Gang Starr duo, but also in his collaborations with a whole host of soulful voices in the Jazzmatazz volumes. The above statement by Guru sounds like a mildly-scathing reference to the former eminent alliance, but one must wonder: has he really knocked out Primo? Is he the champ of the Gang Starr split?
He certainly seems to be feeling that way from the positive reception of his most recently released album, Jazzmatazz Vol. 4: The Hip-Hop Jazz Messenger: Back To The Future, which is entirely produced by Solar, and features a saliva-inducing cast of collaborations including Common, Slum Village, Omar and Raheem Devaughn. The feedback from their live shows and the changing audience has also inspired Guru: “The crowd is getting younger and younger, there’s more women coming to the shows, it’s a sexy show – it’s thugged out, but it’s thugged out in a sexy way! It’s cool, it’s a different look.” New York producer and sometimes rapper, Solar, is Guru’s latest other [musical] half; they started working together two years ago, founded the ‘7 Grand’ record label, and aren’t looking back – too much. (“You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you came from, but at the same time living in the past is just that” – Guru)
The three of us sat down in a hotel lobby in London to discuss the progression of 7 Grand, making a sexier live show, and persisting with real messages in an era where nonsensical or unrealistic subject matters on a hot beat seem to prevail.
