Guru of gangstarr succumbs to cancer

Hip-Hop Luminary Guru Succumbs To Cancer

Hip-hop icon Keith "Guru" Elam died Monday as a result of cancer-related causes, MTV reports. He was 43 years old.

Guru was hospitalized in March, and while some outlets reported that he suffered a heart attack, it was never confirmed.

Guru's friend and partner Solar released a statement following his passing. "The world has lost one of the best MCs and hip-hop icons of all-time-my loyal best friend, partner, and brother, Guru," Solar wrote, according to MTV. "Guru has been battling cancer for well over a year and has lost his battle! This is a matter that Guru wanted private until he could beat it, but tragically, this did not happen. The cancer took him. Now the world has lost a great man a true genius."

Solar said Guru wrote a letter before his passing. "I, Guru, am writing this letter to my fans, friends and loved ones around the world," the letter said. "I have had a long battle with cancer and have succumbed to the disease. I have suffered with this illness for over a year. I have exhausted all medical options."

The letter also addressed Guru's concern for continuing his philanthropic efforts. "I have a non-profit organization called Each One Counts dedicated to carrying on my charitable work on behalf of abused and disadvantaged children from around the world and also to educate and research a cure for this terrible disease that took my life. I write this with tears in my eyes, not of sorrow but of joy for what a wonderful life I have enjoyed and how many great people I have had the pleasure of meeting."

In the message, Guru credited Solar for his support. "My loyal best friend, partner, and brother, Solar, has been at my side through it all and has been made my health proxy by myself on all matters relating to myself. He has been with me by my side on my many hospital stays, operations, doctors visits and stayed with me at my home and cared for me when I could not care for myself. Solar and his family is my family and I love them dearly and I expect my family, friends and fans to respect that, regardless to anybody's feelings on the matter. It is my wish that counts. This being said I am survived by the love of my life, my sun KC, who I trust will be looked after by Solar and his family as their own. Any awards or tributes should be accepted, organized approved by Solar on behalf [of] myself and my son until he is of age to except on his own."

The note also makes controversial references to DJ Premiere. "I do not wish my ex-DJ to have anything to do with my name likeness, events, tributes etc. connected in anyway to my situation including any use of my name or circumstance for any reason and I have instructed my lawyers to enforce this," the letter said. "I had nothing to do with him in life for 7 years and want nothing to do with him in death. Solar has my life story and is well informed on my family situation, as well as the real reason for separating from my ex-DJ.

"As the sole founder of Gang Starr, I am very proud of what Gang Starr has meant to the music world and fans. I equally am proud of my Jazzmatazz series and as the father of Hip-Hop/Jazz. I am proud of my leadership and pioneering efforts on Jazzmatazz 4 for reinvigorating the Hip-hop/Jazz genre in a time when music quality has reached an all time low. Solar and I have toured in places that I have never been before with Gang Starr or Jazzmatazz and we gained a reputation for being the best on the planet at Hip-Hop/Jazz, as well as the biggest and most influential Hip-Hop/Jazz record with Jazzmatazz 4 of the decade to now.

"The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time. And we as a team were not afraid to push the envelope. To me this is what true artists do! As men of honor we stood tall in the face of small-mindedness, greed, and ignorance. As we fought for music and integrity at the cost of not earning millions and for this I will always be happy and proud, and would like to thank the million fans who have seen us perform over the years from all over the world. The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time and is my most creative and experimental to date. I hope that our music will receive the attention it deserves as it is some of the best work I have done and represents some of the best years of my life."
As the duo Gang Starr with DJ Premiere, the group released its most successful album in 1998, Moment Of Truth. They emerged in the ‘80s and were featured in Spike Lee's movie Mo Betta Blues. Gang Starr released its last album, The Ownerz, in 2003.

 

One Of New York's Finest...

Damn.................

TOP 5 RAP Group of ALL TYME. Eighty percent of the rap garbage on the radio cannot phuck with the REAL...

Surely wished whatever beef you had with Premo could have been squashed.

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REST IN PEACE GOD!!!

 

true indeed. it sucks that he wrote a letter on his deathbed where he is still distancing himself from premo. simply referring to him as his ex-dj. i hope premiere makes an official gangstarr mixtape tho, cuttin and droppin soundbytes.

r.i.p. Guru

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What a great idea!

 

Now there's talk n' shit about Guru and Solar being gay.

 

I know.

That whole thing is suspect.

 

Yeah, I hate when bulshit starts after a person's death, and they can't say anything about it.

Supposedly, Solar used to beat Guru. The fuck?

 

Yeah, let a man RIP. I'm still in shock about his demise.

People are cruel and evil sometimes.

 

I was reading a story where people were stating they believe Solar was the one who wrote the letter. I thought Solar was his blood brother.

They believe solar wrote it to arrest the money. Also they believe he wrote because most of the time people when they are on the deathbed they want to mend relationships. also they stated Guru was a really spiritual man and he would have done that.


what is the beef between guru and premeir

 

Not sure what the beef was bwetween Guru and Primo. Think it was just creative differences, or some shit. Never really knew. And naw, Solar and Guru weren't brothers. I think EVERYBODY thinks Solar wrote that letter for the money.

 

Yeah after reading the blog. I believe it was black voices that discussed it and I came to the conclusion of no conclusion that it could have happened

 

apparently premo did make a tribute mixtape in honor of guru. i haven't downloaded it yet but i am very interested in hearing it. here's some more news on the last days of guru...

Published 04/28/2010
By Allen Starbury

Guru's former producer and Gangstarr group member, DJ Premier, revealed some even more disturbing information recently, when he ran a tribute show to his late friend on his Sirius/XM show. During his broadcast, he detailed the last time he saw Guru, which was in the hospital. Premier said seeing the rapper wasn't a pretty sight, claiming that Solar did not care for him the way he said he had been.

"When I saw Guru it really f***ed me up," Premier said during his show. "From what I was hearing -- him waking up, and writing and tweeting ... there's no way! There's no way! We saw him, he looked so gone!

"If you love him, and you're care of him, why in the f*** did his nails look longer than a f***ing ruler? [And he had a] clump afro. I've taken care of people in the hospital. You can wash their head, you can clean their nails up, clean their feet. His feet were swollen, and his toenails were really disgusting. So because of that, it really f***ed me up."

Before ending his show, the DJ described his final gesture to Guru, as he lay unconscious, just two days before his death.

"I took the logo off my shirt, and rubbed it against his whole body ... and I told him a message from me about how much I loved him, and we were for life, and we are still for life. And then I kissed him on the face to let him know that I was gonna miss him, because it seemed like he was already gone. All the tubes and respirators, I witnessed that."

 

Wow. That's some disturbing shit. Solar really was a piece of shit. That had Primo all fucked up. Such a sad story.

 

I am too! Let me know when you have it.

How sad! What an evil bastard

Indeed.

I wonder why the nurses didn't cut his nails or wash his hair. What kind of facility was he in?

 

from the urban dailey

Solar’s Baby Mama: I Saw Him Punch Guru In The Face Many Times
By Bill Johnson April 27, 2010 4:33 pm


Tasha Denham was an employee of Guru & Solar’s 7 Grand Records label as well as the mother of one of Solar’s children.


In an exclusive (and lengthy!) interview with Hip Hop DX, she sheds quite a bit of light on the violent, controlling nature of Guru & Solar’s partnership.

DX: As a close associate, an employee, all these things. When was the first time you started to notice that things were not normal or healthy?
Tasha Denham: [Pauses] I think it came pretty early on, really. One of the defining moments to me when I knew something was…it was the way Solar spoke to Guru. It was always down to him. He really belittled him, and would do it in front of other people. This wasn’t something he just did in private. He is a member of The [Five Percent] Nation of Gods and Earths, as is Guru. He would use that against him, to bring him down. It was important to both of them, very important. I believe Guru’s a pleaser; he liked to make people happy. [Solar] would tell him that the Nation of Gods and Earths are ashamed of him, they’re disappointed in him. That he doesn’t live up to their teachings… There was a lot of times they’d get into arguments over it. He’d sit, and Guru would try to defend himself, and Solar would just get more and more irate over it.

There was one night we were at Guru’s house. I was about three months pregnant at the time. Guru kept defending himself. Guru actually stood up and kind of got in Solar’s face about it. Next thing I know, Solar punched him in the face. From that point in time, he just started kicking him and hitting him. Guru was fighting back, he wasn’t just sitting there being a punk, but at the same time, Guru had severe asthma. He didn’t have his inhaler. He started really hyper-ventilating and really having a hard time, and Solar kept beating him. It wasn’t a fight anymore, it was beating him. I felt that it was so bad that I got in between the two of them and broke it up, because I knew he wouldn’t hit me of course. At that point in time, I was pregnant with his child.

Instead of stopping and making sure his partner, friend, “brother” – as he calls him was okay, Guru was sitting there saying, “I’m having an asthma attack. I need to go to the hospital. I think I’m gonna have a heart attack.” He’s bleeding, really shaking. Instead of stopping and calming himself down, [Solar] told me, “We’re leaving,” and goes and gets in the car and drives me back to the city. [He] didn’t call and check on Guru, didn’t make sure he was alright. That’s probably one of the first times I was like, “Wow, this relationship is really unhealthy. It’s a really sick relationship.” After that, if I didn’t physically see it myself…I saw [Guru] punched in the face numerous times with no provocation. It [would just be] that he’d get upset with something Guru would say and punch him in the face. I know he knocked a tooth out of Guru’s. I know he gave him a black eye [so Guru would] have to wear glasses for photo-shoots and concerts. To listen to [Solar] talk to [Guru], you’d think he was talking to a child sometimes. Guru would tell me how bad that hurt him. He’d say, “Back when we were just friends, he never would have spoken to me this way. He always treated me with respect. Now that we’re doing this record label, he has no respect. He treats me this way.” There was a fear in him. Solar had distanced him from everything in his life: his family, his ex-partner, the whole Gang Starr Foundation and the music industry, really, as a whole. Guru spent a lot of time alone. A lot of time, if he wasn’t with Solar, he was by himself. It was his son or Solar.

 

Damn, this really is sad. I hate Solar more and more, with each story. And it's sad that Guru was a lonely person. Wish he coula hit up his boy, Primo, during hard times. They go back over 20 years. That's disgusting, beating him, causing him to have an asthma attack, and just leaving him. Fuck Solar.I'd rather that fucker be in the casket. RIP, Guru.

 

Awful, man.

Gotta be more to this story, something Solar held over Guru.

 

Amen!

Solar better get his Karma. Like I said, that fucker is evil.