Guru
A living legend in the hip-hop community, the man born Keith Elam has forged a career for himself as a forward thinking MC, both with his duo Gang Starr and his pioneering hip-hop/jazz crossover series Jazzmatazz.
Founded in the late 1980s with producer DJ Premier (himself something of a hip-hop legend) Gang Starr first attracted wide-spread attention with its 1991 album Step In the Arena. Follow-ups Daily Operation and Hard To Earn brought the group critical acclaim and launched hit singles like “Take It Personal” and “Mass Appeal.” Though Gang Starr never attained the same level of mainstream success as some of their peers, Guru and Premier’s work on these records has proven quite influential to those that followed. Though they have not officially broken up, Gang Starr has been inactive for some time now, with both Guru and Premier moving on to other projects.
Guru’s interest in jazz had already been established (with the tracks “Jazz Music” and “Jazz Thing”) by the time he released the first Jazzmatazz album in 1993. The album featured collaborations with such luminaries as Donald Byrd, Branford Marsalis and Roy Ayers. The critical and commercial success of the first Jazzmatazz has led to a series of albums on which Guru has teamed up with a multitude of jazz greats, including Herbie Hancock, Ronny Jordon and Courtney Pine.
Guru entered the David Sanborn universe when he recruited David for his latest project, Jazzmatazz, Vol 4: The Hip Hop Jazz Messenger: Back To the Future. David appears on the last track on the album, the aptly titled “Living Legend”.
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