Last year hip-hop lost one of its greatest icons. Such was the reputation that Guru, or Keith Edward Elam to use his government name, built during his lifetime that the legacy he leaves behind needs very little introduction. Sadly though, much of the coverage in the immediate aftermath of Guru’s passing focussed on controversies involving the likes of forged letters and the state of various personal relationships at the expense of the musical legacy he left behind. So, with what would have been Elam’s 50th Birthday arriving on 17th July, it seems worth the running the risk of preaching to the converted to put this right and celebrate the life and work of a true hip-hop legend.

Over a long and successful recording career Guru collaborated with artists as diverse as Donald Byrd, Scarface and even Emma B from the Spice Girls (really). But it is his work with DJ Premier that most heads will remember best. Hip-hop has seen some pretty formidable rapper/producer partnerships over the years, but even amongst the exalted company of Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Mobb Deep, Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, Show & AG and the like, Gang Starr stand tall as the greatest of all time.

Over Sixteen years and six studio albums together, Guru’s hard but intelligent monotone flows over Premier’s tough-as-they-come beats and scratches came to define what New York boom-bap should sound like. By their sixth and final studio album together, the pair could justifiably claim to be the ‘Owners’ of the genre. In a culture that too often only acknowledges its greatest talents after they’re gone, the love and recognition Guru and Preem received during their time working together is all the more special.

Throughout his career Guru also worked on numerous other side-projects. He produced four volumes of his Jazzmatazz series, collaborating with some of the biggest names of the jazz world along the way. He also released a raft of solo material under various guises, founded his own Ill Kid Records imprint and guested on a numerous other releases from artists as diverse as Nenah Cherry and DJ Krush. In his later years, Guru’s relationship with DJ Premier broke down and by the time he passed away, some of his aspects of his life seemed to resemble a surreal soap-opera.
Still, that’s not what fans will remember about the man, and over the course of his career, Guru’s distinctive rhymes featured on countless classic tracks. More often than not they also featured the handywork of a genuine super-producer in the shape of DJ Premier.

Below is a small selection of some Guru appearances from throughout his career. Its by no means a definitive collection, and while it seemed strange leaving out some stone-cold classics like (deep breath) Just to get a Rep, Check the Technique, Mass Appeal, Work, Full Clip, Code of the Streets, B.Y.S, all those tracks are pretty well-known and easy find for those that aren’t familiar. Instead here are a few of Guru’s less often-heard moments including collaborations, remixes and B-sides. Happy birthday Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal. Gone but never forgotten.

1987 Gang Starr – Bust A Move
Gang Starr were very much still in their formative years here, as a fresh-faced Guru shares mic duties with fellow Bostonians Damo and Mike D. DJ Premier hadn’t joined the party yet either – production here is ably handled by Mark the 45 King.

1992 Gang Starr – Ex to Next remix
With Primo on board, Gang Starr were well into their stride by the time this 12” from their third album ‘Daily Operation’ dropped. Primo serves up a tougher beat and different scratch hook for this alternate version.

1992 – Heavy D & The Boys – A Buncha Niggas
A heavy-weight posse cut here featuring 3rd Eye, Rob-O, Biggie, Busta Rhymes, Heavy D and of course the bald head pimpster himself.

1995 – Guru Ft. Chaka Khan – Watch What you Say
This track is lifted from the second volumes of his Jazz-rap side project Jazzmatazz. During the course of these albums he worked with numerous legends including Issac Hayes, Herbie Hancock, Lonnie Liston Smith and Roy Ayers. Alongside Guru, this track features the legendary Chaka Khan doing her thing over a perfectly matched Primo beat.

1996 – DJ Honda – What You Expected?
Here Guru lays down his monotone flows over a crisp Roy Ayres loop, flipped by Japan’s finest, while Primo gets busy with the cuts.

1998 – N’dea Davenport – Bring It On (Premier & Guru Mix)
Guru and Preem lend a hand to one-time Brand New Heavy N’dea Davenport and toughen up a track from her self-titled album in the process.

1998 Gang Starr – Militia (Soul Brother Remix)
Guru’s obituary in the Guardian, written by Garth Cartwright, concluded with a sideswipe accusing Guru of emulating ‘minor Boston rapper and criminal’ and Gang Starr affiliate Big Shug in ‘behaving thuggishly’. As Guru once rapped: ‘Chumps like you, I gotta keep ‘em in line’ and here Guru shows what he will rightfully be remembered for – making dope music without compromise.

1999 Easy Moe Bee – Soul
Definitely one of the less well-known Gang Starr outings, this track is from Easy Mo Bee’s Now Or Never: Odyssey 2000 album. Wax-collectors may be interested to hear it is also available on promo-only yellow vinyl.

1999 Gang Starr – Battle
This track featured on a sampler taken from the 8 Mile soundtrack. Living up to the track’s title Guru and Preem offer an open invitation to would-be challengers.

2000 Kreators – Home
Brooklyn might have been where he dwelled, but Guru was a proud Boston native. Here he gives his hometown some dap alongside some of the city’s other MC exports.

2002 Gang Starr – Natural
This track was the B-side to the first single from the final Gang Starr album. As the man himself puts it: ‘Once again Brains open as I go half with Premier’. True indeed. Rest in peace.

Words: Nat Lentell

One of the world’s greatest wordsmiths, Gil Scott-Heron, has died in hospital in NYC, aged 62. Often coined as the Godfather of Rap, a title that he refused to acknowledge – and little wonder given his anti-commercialist sentiments – he preferred instead the term Black American Musician.

A career spanning some forty odd years saw him perform poetry and spoken word, often backed by jazz and blues with a heavy African influence. He published two novels, The Vulture and The Nigger Factory, penning the first of these at the age of 19.

Though he disputed his place in the founding church of hip-hop, his influence on the genre is unarguable, and one need only look to the cache of samples to see how revered he was, and will no doubt continue to be, among young musicians in the hip-hop community.
Pulling no punches, Scott-Heron’s music was never shy of tackling the prevalent socio-political issues of the day, in a 1970s America fraught with the frustrations of the Viet Nam War and the fight for black civil rights post-Malcom X and MLK.

Songs such as Did You Hear What They Said? and Pieces of A Man deal with the struggles of black men in a society that had come to be driven by power hungry whites, high off their new wars against the communists. Whitey On The Moon is a perfect illustration of how America’s space race with the Soviet Union led to the government’s gross oversight of the myriad social problems that Scott-Heron would have seen while living in the Bronx. Yet it is still difficult to imagine a time when his words won’t ring true in some form or other.

His 2010 LP, I’m New Here received critical acclaim while We’re New Here, the remix album with Jamie xx highlighted Scott-Heron’s influence on a new generation of music lovers.

Do yourself a favour today and switch off the TV kids.

Words: John Whybrow

Horrorcore emerged in the late 1980s, perhaps as a reaction to the hippy hop of De La Soul or an evolution of NWA and the Geto Boys’ brutal gangsta rap.

Despite the aesthetic dichotomy between heavy metal and hip-hop the genres have shared many similarities, especially at the extreme end of rap.  A morbid fascination with murder and violence was a preoccupation for Kool G Rap, KRS 1 and Anthrax alike during the late 1980s. Throw in tropes of drugs, misogyny, and violence over a horror film ambiance and you have all the key ingredients of horrorcore.  Musically there are no real consistencies, it is neither hip-hop nor heavy metal (yet much closer to the former), encompassing elements of trip-hop, industrial drum machines, trashy guitars, digital snaps and Hammond organ edits are all part of this Frankenstein-style genres musical makeup.

There is uncertainty over the originator for the term ‘horrorcore’. Russel Simmons laid claim to it in the early 90s; attributing the term to his cousins group, the short-lived Flatlinerz. But in truth there were artists doing horror-rap (or horrocore) back in the 80s, one of the first and most noteworthy was Esham The Unholy. The Detroit native released his first album Words From Hell in 1989, aged just 13, for one so young he had a unique creative vision blending violent reality raps with tales of drugs, alcohol abuse and murder over beats sampling anything from heavy metal to Japanese flutes.

In 1993 Esham incited outrage, receiving death threats from anti-abortionist groups after the release of his KKKill The Foetus LP (unlikely to be found in the ‘urban’ section at your local HMV). The popularity of Esham’s twisted rap may have been underground but it didn’t fail to capture the imagination of other young rappers in his area, including Proof and a certain Eminem. Over in New York at around the same time of Esham‘s debut release a group of new school pioneers were busy altering the boundaries of hip-hop, yet again. Ultramagnetic MC’s were among the first to use chopped samples whilst incorporating elements of the nascent horrorcore sound. A widely reported, former Bellevue mental asylum patient Kool Keith led the group. As a solo artist Kool Keith became even more experimental with his music, as well as going through a variety of different personas, and it was his Dr Octagon alias that proved most popular and the Dr. Octagonecologyst release on Mo Wax exposed horrorcore to a whole new audience.

But it was the Gravediggaz who recorded the seminal horrorcore album with their 1994 release, Niggamortis (a title that was changed to 6 Feet Deep in America). Gravediggaz were a concept group consisting of some key figures in hip-hop from the period; De La Soul and Stetsasonic producer Prince Paul (or The Undertaker, to use his group name) along with the MCs Frukwan (The Gatekeeper), Too Poetic (The Grym Reaper) from the Brothers Grym and RZA (The Rzarector), who only a year earlier released Enter The 36 Chambers album as the production brains behind Wu Tang Clan. Unlike many other horrorcore acts the Gravediggaz employed black humor and cartoonish violence to great success and it seemed that horrorcore had finally embraced the mainstream.

Mindful of this popular new subgenre Jam Master Jay signed The Flatlinerz to Def Jam, the group consisted of; Jamal ‘Redrum’ Simmons (nephew to Russell Simmons) and two other rappers called Gravedigger and Tempest. Russell Simmons had turned down his cousins group less than a year previous, but after Gravediggaz success he jumped on the proverbial bandwagon and predicted big things for his cousins group. Although this didn’t go according to plan, their album U.S.A (Under Satan’s Authority) lacked the playfulness of 6 Feet Deep and their videos featured blasphemous imagery. This didn’t fit in with ethics of the mainstream music industry in the US, a direction Def Jam were certainly heading towards. To top it all sales were disappointing and the group was dropped after just one album. So the Gravediggaz were left untroubled as the flag bearers of horrorcore, but the original lineup only released one more album together, The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel (1997). Prince Paul played a smaller role in the subtler sound of the album (production responsibilities were mainly taken care of by RZA along with Wu-Tang affiliates True Master and 4^th Disciple) and the subject matter was darker with a harder political edge. By this point horrorcore’s flirtation with the mainstream had seemingly ended.

Acts like Tech N9ne and the quite awful, Insane Clown Posse carried the torch performing at smaller venues around the States but violent outbursts often occurred at shows, resulting in a blanket ban on all horrorcore acts. Congruously, horrorcore was pushed back underground.

But in 1998 along came a white, Jewish, rapper from Brooklyn that made mainstream raps Caucasian bad boy, Eminem, look like the lead singer from Snow Patrol. Necro released his full debut album I Need Drugs in 2000. I Need Drugs pushed the boundaries of bad taste even further, with an almost tireless pursuit of sex and violence. As a teenager Necro played guitar with a number of underground hardcore metal bands in New York as well as winning a rap demo contest on the highly influential Stretch and Bobbito Radio Show back in 1991. Five album releases later and he has cemented a vehement following that has allowed him to go on a world tour, whether you like him or not this is an admirable achievement considering Necro releases his music in complete independence. Having witnessed his first European performance, a sell out show at the Scala in 2006 (a show the local newspaper, Camden Gazette unsuccessfully, lobbied to cancel) I can testify first hand to the messianic-like following he possesses.

What’s interesting about horrorcore is the way many of the artists who are responsible for its very existence; Esham, Necro and Kool Keith have tried to distance themselves from the tag. Esham termed his music ‘Acid Rap’, essentially to distinguish himself from other hardcore and horrorcore rappers. Yet this term is surely more appropriate to the trippy rap of Kool Keith, and I asked him about horrorcore during our interview, the response was typically blunt and hubristic; “I invented Hororrcore. But I don’t listen to groups who try to sound like me, it bores me”.

While Necro informed me over email (in all capitals) that he “created the term “death rap” to separate myself from any genre title that I don’t agree with…the term horrorcore supposedly was created by Russell Simmons to describe his nephew’s group that he put out. It doesn’t describe my shit.”

Yet there are equally many well-known artists who have used this esoteric genre for it’s dark credibility. Eminem’s early career was largely influenced by horrorcore (listen to a young Slim Shady’s cameo on Biggies Dead Wrong) before someone must have told him that the rap equivalent of snuff movies was never going to earn him millions of dollars or a Hollywood biopic. Even Oscar winners Three 6 Mafia were known for their gruesome beats and eerie lyrics in the early part of their careers, as well as our very own potty-mouthed rapper turned soul crooner, Plan B. Check the song Kidz, a story of a 14-year-old who kills, rapes and robs his victims for gruesome horrorcore influence.

What of horrorcore in 2011? For a (sub)genre of music that has always been so reliant on word of mouth it’s not surprising that it has found a welcome home online. But with it has come a general dilution of creativity, with very few new artists of any note claiming to be ‘horrorcore’. At time of writing one horrorcore rapper who appears to be in the news (or the Oakland Tribune, at least ) is Mars (real name Mario Delgado) whose music has reportedly been cited as an influence behind a quadruple murder charge. These sort of accusations are nothing new in music and rap in particular, sadly, and Mars appears to be milking the attention for all its worth. Although further listening (is difficult) reveals him to be yet another corny, angry white rapper biting the ideas of those that have preceded him.

Horrorcore is probably best served as a sampling pot to contemporary music. A good example being King Cannibal, who cites the genre and Gravediggaz in particular as a major early influence. His haunting and aggressive strain of electronic music has been described as ‘breakcore’ among bloggers yet his choice of vocal samples – shivers, screams and lines like ‘I want to slice your face’ from the Aragami Style track on his acclaimed 2009 debut LP, Let The Night Roar released on Ninja Tune -  and choice of drum patterns are a less than subtle nod to the dark metal/rap hybrid.

Perhaps Necro himself put it best “in the end, it doesn’t matter what you label something, because if its dope its dope, regardless of genre”.

Big L
Return of the Devil’s Son
SMC Recordings

Posthumous albums are always a risky business, at their best they can stand to assert and compliment the pre-existing legacy, such as in the case of J Dilla’s Jay Stay Paid. At worse they can be messy affairs that serve to diminish what was so great about the artist in the first place; this tends to be a far more

common occurrence, and one need only

look as far as Biggie Small’s Duets album or anything that has featured an ODB guest vocal since his untimely death. Fortunately, for fans of Big L, Return of the Devil’s Son is a largely successful attempt to capture the gifted MC’s talent in his prime.

With vocal tracks culled from various freestyles and out-takes, and production from Showbiz, Large Professor and Lord Finesse, Return of the Devil’s Son comes out of the gate like a forgotten 90′s boom-bap classic. Tracks such as ‘School Days’ and ‘Unexpected Flava’ are effective at recalling the energy and drive that occupied New York hip-hop at the time – the production is impeccable in its ability to compliment and frame Big L’s high-energy battle raps. Unfortunately this isn’t consistent throughout the album’s entirety. Return of the Devil’s Son falls down occasionally on tracks like ‘Right to the Top’ where it becomes immediately apparent that someone has stitched a grubby, half-rate instrumental onto a stray acapella. Thankfully moments like this are relatively brief, though it does highlight that part of Big L’s appeal was his ability to ride the pocket of a beat, making it feel organic and natural (there is a perfect example of this on the audition tape towards the end of the album). For the large part Return of the Devil’s Son stands as evidence of that, as well as emphasising what a blow Big L’s death in 1999 struck for the hip-hop community.

Sad news emerged last week as punk svengali Malcolm McLaren passed away due to mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer.

Best known for managing the Sex Pistols he was also quick to recognize the many parallels between punk and hip-hop, despite the stylistic differences of the two genres. And in many respects McLaren introduced the UK to hip-hop via the much sampled Duck Rock album which he produced alongside post-punk guru Trevor Horn in 1982.

DJ Premier displays his typical musical erudition with this tribute mix which you can stream here or download from Premos’ blog.

It’s 13 years to the day since the passing of Biggie Smalls. On the 26th of March it will be 15 years since Eazy E died of AIDS and the 11th of April is the Day Proof (D12) was shot dead. With this in mind, recent Mercury Prize winner Wayne Lotek has put together this dope tribute mix for all the fallen soldiers. And it’s free to download here.

Featuring the recently deceased Apache, MC Breed, Proof, Poetic/Grym Reaper(Gravediggaz), Eazy E, Big Pun, Ol Dirty Bastard, Big L, 2Pac and of course The Notorious B.I.G. Obviously there’s too many dead rappers to feature on one mixtape, but maybe he’ll do a volume 2 if this get’s enough downloads. Who would you put on?

Biggie Smalls R.I.P