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- Jul 5, 2002
An interview from a few years back:
Link
Link
Guru: Well first let me give a little back ground about how this how came about. With Gangstarr, I felt frustrated. Being on a major label and every time we came out with a record there was input from the label or the A&R who wanted to tamper with our creative vision, especially mine as the front man and the writer.
They had it under the contract that I could only use Guru for Gangstarr and Jazzmatazz, a seven album period. It was really annoying to me because Premier being that he was just a member of the group, production wasn’t covered under that, so he could produce for whomever he wanted. I supported that because I felt that was good for Gangstarr because it was like people were buying into Gangstarr, but I still felt it was foul that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, so I vowed that once I got out of that contract, I was going to do a solo project. During that time, Solar was hanging with us. For people who don’t really know what’s going on, they think that Solar came out of no where.
JIVE: You’re from the Native Tongue era.
Guru: Right. But a lot get it twisted. This industry is set up to bury rappers from my era. They milk them rather than develop them like they would a new artist. And that’s why I wanted to leave Gangstarr as it is.
There’s no beef with me and Premier. No emotionality involved. What it has to do with is Gangstarr is a legacy, and if we keep trying to put it out under the wrong circumstances, then it will just get milked and milked and milked until its something that’s not worth anything. I didn’t want that, so I am leaving that as a legacy, and at the same time create a new legacy.
