R.I.P. Guru

Damn, just saw the news that Guru died.

Not sure that I can eulogize a guy I never actually knew, so I’ll just go back and quote this post I wrote 7 years and 13 days ago…

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allow me to take you back to the early-to-mid-nineties. a young white suburban high school kid in upstate new york. sitting at his mac IIci, designing stuff in aldus superpaint. he’s listening to the friday night hip hop show on the RPI radio station.

as a young white suburban kid in upstate new york in the early-to-mid-nineties, there weren’t a whole lot of places to listen to hip hop. looking back, and looking at the crowd I was running around with, I’m not overly sure why I got into hip hop so much, while others around me didn’t. but that’s a story for another post.

this post is about DWYCK. it’s a song by gang starr, featuring nice & smooth. and somehow I totally associate that song with my high school rap show radio-listening superpaint-designing sessions. and as I said in an e-mail I wrote to fish a few months back, (which was strikingly similar to this post,) it may be one of my favorite rap songs of all time.

lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
I get more props and stunts than bruce willis

man that is so classic.

so anyway, last night I saw gang starr. along with talib kweli and common. it was a great show. of the three acts, I was looking forward to gang starr the most. because while I’ve been listening to kweli and common for the last year or two, I’ve been listening to gang starr for the last ten.

and then it happened. towards the end of the set, the opening beats of DWYCK. and nice & smooth burst onstage. the crowd went nuts. sure, some of the kids there may have had no idea what the commotion was, but the rest of us sure as hell did.

the song was incredible. crazy energy from everyone. wow.

yeah.

ok, that’s that. if you just read all this and are now thinking “DWYCK? I’ve never heard of that song,” or, even worse, “Gang Starr? who are they?” then please do yourself a favor and listen to DWYCK.

thank you.

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RIP, Guru.