0499. Gang Starr
Step In The Arena

First of all, I'm pretty appalled that the Gang Starr article on Wikipedia is so damn short (not even in the articles for Guru and DJ Premier there's much written 'bout their collaboration). What's up with that? I know there's a bunch of hip hop archareologists out there, so get to work, kids! But over to the album:

This is classic Gang Starr with Guru's (kinda) monotonos flow over Premier's (kinda) stripped down beats - or "stripped down" is probably the wrong term here, I guess I'm searching for something along the lines of "exact", cause there's a lot of things happening here without creating a mushed up wall of sound.

It's simply very good East Coast hiphop that makes your head nod.

[The saddest part is that my edition of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die's writing about Gang Starr as a vibrant and still existing group. Since the book got off the press they had a falling out and Guru's died. Now I'm depressed. Damnit]