Gang Starr - One of the Best Yet 2xLP

Gang Starr Enteprises / TTT / INgrooves (2019)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo! MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for thirty plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

When I started to type up the label name and release date, I was kind of shocked that this record is seven years old already.  It's been sitting in my 'to write about' pile for almost as long.  As I've mentioned before, I'm trying desperately to get through a backlog, particularly of hip hop records, so I'm doing my best to focus on the ones that have been sitting around for a while.  I'm not sure that anything in my pile has been sitting as long as this.

Part of the reason is not really knowing what to say about it.  This was released in 2019.   Guru from Gang Starr passed in 2010.  There's this whole drama where Premier didn't have access to Guru's archive for a while and it's kind of a convoluted mess that I don't feel like trying to explain right now., in part because I'm not even positive that I understand it completely.  He did eventually get access and pieced together this album using the vocal material available to him.  He paired his production to the vocals that were available and brought in guest appearances to flesh out everything until there was enough for an album.

As a technical marvel and a final tribute to the legacy of Guru, I don't want to disparage what everyone was able to accomplish.  I'm glad they did it.  For me, just judging it as an album and forgetting the extra emotional baggage, it's only OK.  The production is solid, but not remarkable.  As much as I love Gang Starr and Premier's production, I have always preferred the sounds he was crafting in the early 90s.  The later we get, the less it connects with me.  It's not like I'm saying Moment of Truth wasn't a well produced record, but I don't think it holds a candle to Daily Operation or Hard To Earn.

The rhymes that they were able to get from Guru's archive are strong.  I've always found him to be underrated as an MC with Premier's production getting so much of the group's attention.  Guru has always been a master at a laid back, confident conversational flow and this material is no different.  The problem is there's probably not enough for a full album, thus the many, many guest appearances.

It's tough to not be the old man saying "back in my day, hip hop albums only had one or two guest appearances and the main MCs did the rest of the heavy lifting," but I have to say it.  I don't buy a Gang Starr record to hear someone else rapping.  Sure, it's cool if Jeru shows up for a song, but when that is one of a dozen features, it turns into a compilation and that's too much for me.  Not to mention that many of the MCs brought in don't really have much to do with Gang Starr and it's a little jarring having them pop in on a verse or drop down a bizarre hook that doesn't have much to do with what Guru was rhyming about.

Still, the fact that it exists at all is a great thing, as a tribute to Guru and Gang Starr and as a bit of hopeful closure for DJ Premier.  Not to mention that there are moments on here that are truly great.  They are unfortunately only just moments though.  Worth a listen if you are a fan if nothing else.

Gang Starr - One of the Best Yet:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mfOxmtWGvvX7ehOGD9IlGqOPgZqSk5P8U