This brief blog, is to celebrate the life and works of the rapper Guru (born Keith Elam, July 17, 1966. Died, April 19, 2010).

A personal favourite of every one here at Rapshack.co.uk we would lke to celebrate the works and times of Guru. With all the conspiracy surrounding his illness and the reasons for his time in hospital months before his death, we feel that there is enough mention on this and not enough focus on Guru, as we all knew and loved him to be; A dope rapper and purveyor of the modern Jazz movement and Jazz/Hip Hop fusion.



What continues in this piece is a little information on his background and some embedded videos of his work, both with DJ Premier, known as Gangstarr and his work with legendary Jazz greats such as, Donald Byrd, Bernard Purdie, Courtney Pine and many others in his projects known as the Jazzmatazz Volumes.

Born Keith Elam in the Roxbury section of Boston on July 17, 1962, he began his career in the mid-1980s as MC Keithy E, but soon switched to Guru (which he later turned into an acronym, for Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal).


Guru’s father, Harry Elam, was the first black judge in the Boston municipal courts, and his mother, Barbara, was the co-director of library programs in the Boston public school system. Before beginning his rap career, Guru graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1983 and took graduate classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. After which he briefly worked as a social worker.


In 1988, after an early version of Gang Starr, Guru, Big Shug, DJ 1,2 B-Down (also known as Mike Dee) splintered, Guru met DJ Premier — Christopher Martin, a young DJ/Producer from Houston, whom like Guru had flown the nest to find Hip Hop sanctuary in Brooklyn. They formed a partnership that would lead to six influential and critically acclaimed albums, two of which, “Moment of Truth” and the hits collection “Full Clip,” were certified gold.

After making the six full length Hip Hop albums, Guru wanted to embrace his love for Jazz, and in particular the live Jazz band. He and DJ Premier departed for reasons to grow their on their own solos projects, DJ Premier producing tracks for other artists and Guru pursuing his Jazz fix. A permanent split was never meant to be executed.

Guru went on to make 4 of these projects in terms of 4 volumes of the Jazzmatazz series, full length albums and world tours with full band line ups.

Please take a look at the videos below, the first of which is taken from Gangstarr's second album, 'Step In The Arena'. A Hip Hop classic in it's own right, you can still hear tracks taken from this album being played in clubs all over the word and they still sound dope and fresh as the day they were written.

The second video is of Guru and his Jazzmatazz live band performing a concert in France. With the live band Guru could express himself perhaps a little more indepth than he could with a DJ.

Thank you for reading this blog and we hope that, like us you will help celebrate his life and appreciate what Guru did for us and that was to provide us with dope, hard hitting Hip Hop.

Rest In Power. Guru.









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