Born on July 17, 1966, near Boston, Guru rose to fame in the late 1980s as part of the duo Gang Starr with partner DJ Premier. The pair helped define the New York underground rap sound in the 1990s. Their unique sound combined Premier's production palette, which leaned heavily on sampled jazz records and scratched vocals on the choruses, with Guru's uncompromising rhymes. Although the pair would work separately as often as they did together — Guru's Jazzmatazzseries of albums and Premier's work with Nas, Jay-Z, and underground act Group Home — Gang Starr continued to release critically acclaimed material throughout the late '90s and early 2000s.
Their 1998 album Moment of Truth was among their most critically lauded collections and Gang Starr's biggest-selling project to date. Gang Starr's last group project, The Ownerz, was released in 2003.
Guru found solo fame in 1993 when he released the first volume of his Jazzmatazz series, an all-star project that featured a number of collaborations with jazz icons such as Branford Marsalis, Donald Byrd, Roy Ayers and Ronny Jordan, as well as vocals from French producer Solaar and N'Dea Davenport of the Brand New Heavies. The album's mixture of jazz and rap was considered pioneering at the time, and the record spawned the hit "Trust Me." Guru would go on to make four volumes in the series.
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