Guru & Solar
Guru and Solar speak candidly about all things new – partnerships, labels, music and moving forward.
Photos by Che Kothari
Though originally from Boston, Guru has been a hip hop diplomat representing New York since the early 1990’s. His efforts as half of Gangstarr and his Jazzmatazz recordings made a lasting impression on hip hop’s formative years, and he is respected worldwide for his contributions to the culture via his unflappable, calm delivery of rhymes which emphasize self-knowledge, respect, and street credibility.
Recently, Guru has teamed up with Solar, a producer who grew up breathing hip hop in New York. The duo have founded a record label, 7 Grand Records, and are putting on new talent as well as dropping albums of their own. Guru’s new partnership with Solar is bearing fruit well worth picking. The two sat down with Earwaks recently to speak about music growth and plans coming together.
Guru: It was about six years ago. Just hanging out and we hit it off right away. I was very impressed with how Solar carried himself. In this business, there are a lot of people that come around with their own agenda and they're not really sincere. The god was just very inspirational at the time. I wasn’t happy with a lot of things that were going on, with the major label influence on my creativity and with business and so forth. When he came out on the road with Gangstarr, I would always tell him my frustrations about this, that and the other. And he said, “ If it’s like that dogg, why don’t you just start your own label. You’re an icon in this. You can do things yourself.”
Solar: We was really just hanging out, kicking it. He was complaining that night, and I just wanted to get back to chilling. I was like “Listen man, if it’s that bad…start your own label. Other dudes have done it and they don’t got nothing on you.” And I just went back to what I was doing and forgot about it.
Two days later he gives me a call and says “I’m starting a label - and you’re going to be on the label with me”. I was like ‘Listen I told you to start a label, I didn’t say nothing about we”. But on the straight, I had to think to myself ‘Is this something I want to endeavour to do?’ I hadn’t lived in the public eye; I hadn’t lived my life trying to be a professional producer. I enjoyed making music, but that was as far as I was about to take it. But, I love hip hop. I grew up with it, born and raised with it in New York. This gave me an opportunity to make an impact on something that I love so much and put it in a place where its not at right now.
It’s gone to places I don’t understand, quite honestly. I don’t know what in New York is being represented right now. So I feel that’s a driving force in 7 Grand Records; to bring that level of credibility and respect, back to where it belongs: New York, the home of hip hop. I’m not the type of dude to go around chasing Lamborghini’s and big butt broads. I’m gonna stay focused on what the job at hand is. To me, as a record executive, the president of our own major label, I have to be aware of the people that buy the records, the culture, and I have to be responsible to them because that is my code of ethics.
EW: Would 7 Grand have come about without both of you involved, or is this a collaboration thing?
Guru: It’s a total collaboration. We came together with the concept, even the name.
Solar: Even the day to day running of the company, its so balanced in the sense that he’s lived his life in the public eye as a major recording icon and I bring that other angle of someone that just loves music, a fan of music. So we balance each other out because we see things from different angles.
EW: Solar, what were you doing production wise before you hooked up with Guru?
Solar: I’ve always been making music, ever since I was a little kid. Pretty typical - I wasn’t working on anything specific, but whenever I wanted to make music, I would just go back to my studio and do it. I made beats over the years and compiled a number of tracks. I collaborated with God most often and it was just a way to spend time together. Hip Hop was invented by the gods, its our invention. Certain gods that are close to me; that’s how we come together to communicate and express ourselves through music. I’ve always done that, since I was a child. When Guru started to put this together, I started to think “At some point I’ve got play my music for him. Because we have spent all this time hanging out and I had never played my music for him. So I said, okay, lets go back to the lab.”
Guru: And I was blown away. Unlike most of the people around me, he wasn’t talking in my ear like ‘Yo son I got beats, you need to come get down on 'em. Because I was getting that all the time. I didn’t really like hearing it. With him it was different. He took me by the lab because I requested to hear some stuff. And I was just blown away, because it was like he just read my mind. Because I’m the kind of artist that constantly wants to reinvent and create, stay cutting edge, stay on top of the game. And he had the proper sound that fit my vision. It was like he read my mind. I was looking for a sound to take Guru into the future. And the first song I heard was the beat for Hall of Fame, which came out on our first album, Street Scriptures. After I heard the instrumental I was like ‘ Yo god, can I take it home, write to it? Couple of days later I came back with the lyrics complete.
Solar: Straight fire. I wasn’t even myself for a couple of days because I had to take it a couple of days and just listen to it and come to the conclusion that he sounds great over my tracks. And I’m not the type of producer to force anything. But his lyrics over the track fit perfect. I wrote that track with the hook already in [sings “where do I belong”] and his response to that type of production was ridiculous. I produce with the concept of the song already in it.
So after that, we had to have a talk. We came together, and I was like " I ain't gonna front, this is the best music I’ve heard in a very long time". I loved Gangstarr, I love everything he did in the past, but I knew that we had something right. So we did a few tracks, pressed up some vinyl and took it to industry professionals and deejays to see what the feedback would be. And the first track went to number one on a lot of underground charts all over the world. It was interesting…a lot of people thought I was MC Solar…I still get that sometimes.
EW: Now for you Guru, was it sort of like a rebirth, working with someone new, after working with someone for so long?
Guru: It was indeed a rebirth, a renewal and all of that. It was what I was looking for. He answered my call, you could say.
EW: How much of your time is split up between running the 7 Grand business and making your own writing, producing and performing?
Guru: Well of course we have to do all the typical business, but the writing, producing, performing- that’s our business too. And being that it’s an artist driven label, I think that works for us, for now. We have a group of artists that we’re grooming, Solar has a group in Philadelphia., K-bond and High Power. This could be our first act.
Solar: Now we got a major label and an A&R situation. It doesn’t even have to be us finding the talent, as long as the talent fits what we’re looking for. We listen to demos, we listen to people’s stuff on Myspace. Guru has always been known for discovering new talent. If you listen to his albums, especially the Jazzmatazz series, you see that the man has an ear for it.
EW: So how much sampling do you guys do and how much production do you do yourself?
Guru: The Street Scriptures, that was straight hip hop, so there was sampling involved with that record. Jazzmatazz though, is less structured so I was free to do a whole bunch of things musically.
Solar: Well The Street Scriptures was that, hip hop. I felt that to bring a credible album, being a producer from New York, I felt I had to bring the heat on that one. Something that the heads were gonna feel, the streets were gonna feel, and at the same time didn’t fool them and make them think that Solar wasn’t gonna explore other things. It was the perfect introduction for Guru and Solar together. But with Jazzmatazz there is no sampling.
EW: Have you heard tracks where you’ve been sampled? ‘Bring the Lights Down’ is a sick sample you hear a lot.
Solar: Its cool, its an honour. Even when people scratch it, it is a tribute.
Guru: Our second single, from The Street Scriptures, its called Hood Dreaming. We went out to LA to shoot a video, it has a Sin City type vibe, with CGI. We took the concept from the old series Green Hornet and Kato. Its one of the hottest songs from our show.
But then, next thing you know, we hear the Lupe [Fiasco] album, Daydream. They bit the whole idea and put Jill Scott on there singing that hook. To me, they bit Solar's track and then they bit Jazzmatazz by putting her on there singing that way. It is what it is.
Solar: Its kind of strange, I’m not gonna front. When I heard it at first I didn’t like it, and I still don’t for one reason. Not for me so much, because if you’ve got heat people are gonna wanna come get it. But the dude who produced it is a major A&R for Atlantic. Its kind of weird for a guy like that to get involved with doing something like this, and not even holler at Guru on some level.
Guru: That guy knew our record, that’s how I know it’s not a coincidence.
Solar: This goes back to my other point that it’s hard to make sense of what’s going on in hip hop right now. It’s detrimental to the industry. Forget about the whole financial aspect - you’re breaking out a new artist, and this is how you introduce him, by stealing. He hasn’t done any interviews saying he heard The Street Scriptures, but we’re getting a thousand hits a day for the track on Myspace.
This is an industry that was created by men that loved themselves, even though there was a society that hated them. That’s what made hip hop. So for us to steal from each other, that’s futuristic. It was never supposed to be like that. Hip hop has so much to offer, and people look up to us. I’ve been around the world with Guru twice and people look up to him as a statesmen, as someone who brings the truth. They don’t want to see this crap.
Guru: That’s what I like about Solar. There’s many ways he could’ve gone about producing me. Especially with the first record, being a straight hip hop record. He could've gone and made it sound like a Gangstarr track but he didn’t. He did his own thing, and it pushed me to different lyrical heights, because that’s what I need. We did a song called Caved In that is 116 bpm and I’ve never done that before. It was challenging, but it came out dope.
Solar: That was one of my greatest surprises about Gurus ability. I just played the Caved In loop and asked him ‘ can you go to this?’ and he said yeah, took it as always, and came back two days later…again straight fire. And he's comfortable there, it doesn’t sound like he's pushing himself. Theres no pro tools trickery going there…just straight fire.
Its safe to say we can look forward to picking up some dropped gems from 7 Grand Records in the future. Those in Europe can look forward to several tourdates in July and August of 2007.
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