S. Samuel
DJ Premier has opened up on the recent passing of Guru and revealed his hopes for the future of Gang Starr.
From Premier hopes their past works will financially provide for the late rapper’s son.
“I want the name to stay alive… but the right way. I don’t have a hidden agenda. His son should get that money. Of course I’ll get my half and that’s not on no selfish shit. That’s just off of what we built together. Nothing can take away from what Gang Starr did. That’s what I was stressing to Guru before he passed. We have tons of footage and DVD material that could have been sold. This is way before he was sick. I plan to discuss what can be done with Guru’s family. I don’t care if it’s from a lawyer’s standpoint. The main thing is we never dissolved our Gang Starr contract. We are still signed to each other. We never disbanded the group. If Guru really wanted to super dead it he would have said, ‘Yo, I want out.’ And I still would have tried to convince him to stay. We are still Gang Starr.” (VIBE)
Last week, Premier revealed his final hospital visit with Guru.
“If you love him, and you’re taking care of him, why the f**k did his nails look longer than a f*cking ruler?!” Premier directed toward Guru’s partner Solar during a Sirius broadcast. “[And] a clump Afro?! I’ve taken care of people in the hospital [before]. You can wash their hair and cleantheir nails off. His feet were swollen and his toenails were really disgusting…I took the logo on my shirt and rubbed it against his whole body and told him a message from me about how much I loved him, and that we were for life and still were for life. Then I kissed him on his face and let him know that I was going to miss him because it seemed like he was already gone.” (All Hip Hop)
Prior to speaking on Solar, Preem said he would resist talking about Guru’s alleged final letter.
“IT WAS A SAD DAY FOR ME TO GET CONFIRMATION ON THE DEATH OF A MAN WHO I WILL CONTINUE TO CALL MY BROTHER, KEITH ELAM, BETTER KNOWN AS GURU OF THE LEGENDARY GANG STARR,” he wrote. “FROM 1988-2004, WE EXPERIENCED SO MUCH SUCCESS TOGETHER THAT WE WERE ABLE TO EXPAND OUR BUSINESSES INDEPENDENTLY AND GIVE EACH OTHER WHAT GURU CALLED “CREATIVE SPACE,” BEFORE PLANNING TO REUNITE FOR OUR 7TH LP WHEN THE TIME WAS RIGHT. TRAGICALLY, WE WILL NEVER REACH THAT DAY. I’VE BEEN ASKED TO COMMENT ON A LETTER SPEAKING ILL OF ME WHICH WAS SUPPOSEDLY WRITTEN BY GURU IN HIS DYING DAYS. ALL I WILL SAY ABOUT IT IS THAT OUR TIME TOGETHER WAS BEAUTIFUL, WE BUILT A HIP HOP LEGACY TOGETHER, AND NO ONE CAN RE-WRITE HISTORY OR TAKE AWAY MY LOVE FOR HIM. ONE THING I WOULD NEVER DO IS PLAY AROUND WITH THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS LIFE. I WILL CELEBRATE GURU’S LIFE… I WILL HONOR HIS MEMORY… I WILL GRIEVE WITH THE ELAM FAMILY OVER HIS UNTIMELY DEATH…” (Statement)
Guru’s brother, Harry Elam, recently inked an editorial piece speaking on his condition.
“My brother Keith Elam, the hip-hop artist known as GURU–Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal–died this week at the too-young age of 48 because of complications from cancer. ‘Positivity’ was what he sought to bring to the music and to his life, and for me that will be a large part of his legacy,” he wrote. “In February of this year, my brother went into a coma, and I traveled across the country from my home in California to see him. At his bedside, I stood and stared at his overly frail frame, his head that he had kept clean-shaven for the last 20 years uncommonly covered with hair, hisbody connected to a sea of tubes and wires. I listened to the whirl of machines around us and took his hand. As I did, my mind flashed back to now-distant times, so many memories…” (Boston Globe)
Check out DJ Premier speaking on Guru below:
