Three years after the horrible allegations that followed veteran emcee Guru of the legendary Gangstarr Foundation to his grave, 7 Grand Records CEO Solar speaks out.
In this second installment of TheSource.com exclusive interview with Solar, producer and partner of late rap legend Guru, the emcee’s “successor” goes into what and who he feels is the real reason for the Gangstarr split, his solitary assistance to Guru in his last days, and what plans he has for Guru’s catalog in the future.
TheSource.com: When you say “This Guy”, you’re speaking about Premier?
Solar: Just Guru and Premiers issues in the public presentation of Guru passing and all of the slander and accusations and the problems that went on. That’s something that was between, that’s right, Premier and Guru. That’s where all of the clouds, so to speak, came over the lake rather than it be a clean passing that he deserved, to be able to pass and move on. Instead all of this is hurting his legacy and shitting on his name when this man isn’t even here to defend himself and there’s only one source where this is coming from; from Premier’s blog and from his website and from him personally. All these accusations against me were just baseless.
TheSource.com: Those are some serious accusations. Sexual assault. People are saying that you forced him to into signing and making these decisions.
Solar: Exactly, and that’s where it becomes just absolutely ridiculous. And in light of what I said, Guru and Premier, they weren’t together. They didn’t speak. They weren’t on speaking terms on any level whatsoever so to even try to say what Guru wanted, we were like brothers. I was with him throught the whole cancer situation. From the time he was diagnosed to the time he passed, I was there. Every hospital stay, I was there. I was there with him every day at the hospital. You know? He was my brother and I was with him through the parts where we were hopeful where we were hoping he could beat the cancer and through the times when he wasn’t. But again when somebody makes all these slanderous accusations about a man that’s not here, all I can do is what I’ve done and vehemently deny it and say this is nonsense, this is crazy. But in the absence of Guru being able to come forward and answer that, that’s just what it becomes. And on the flip side of that legally none of these things are foundable or have been foundable. All they’ve managed to do was slander a great man and slander a great man’s work and of course throw dirt on my name and my situation when I did nothing wrong. I had nothing to do with all of their problems that nobody’s bothered to ask Premier about. Nobody’s bothered to ask him what went on. Why Gangstarr really broke up. What went on with Guru feeling uncomfortable with all these murders happening in the Gangstarr camp and headquarters with Big L and the police investigation asking Guru what he knew about the murder. These are all things that made Guru very uncomfortable. Understandably so. And then there was a murder attempt on Guru’s life. Nobody’s asked him or went into these things that would easily drive a wedge in any two people.
TheSource.com: You said there was an attempted murder on Guru?
Solar: Back in late 2000 out in Queens, in the desert. He was ambushed and almost assassinated and these are all things that will come out eventually in the book, or the movie. These are the things that left the cloud. None of this came out. All they started doing was throwing around crazy accusations that Guru couldn’t obviously defend and all I could say is this was not the case. You know, none of this was being said while Guru was alive. All I can do is defend my brothers legacy and defend him. Nobody else stepped up to defend him. These people haven’t tried to defend him but at the same time you want to go out. How you gonna rep the man’s legacy and catalog when you throwing dirt on the man’s legacy and catalog? That’s a question mark. what I’m doing is pure. I’ve never thrown any dirt on Guru’s catalog. I’ve never thrown any dirt on Guru. I’ve never thrown any dirt on anybody. So I’ve represented it the way Guru would have wanted it represented.
TheSource.com: There have been people who have taken public shots at you. Whether it be on records, it almost seems the scandal has overshadowed Guru’s legacy. How do you feel about that?
Solar: I feel sad. I feel terrible, when neither guru nor I have done anything to merit that. All of this as far as I can see, as soon as they seen guru was on his way out they went right in with the lies and the slander. You know in this Hip Hop game, you can say anything, you can do anything and there’s no real reparation. And that’s what they did. And you know what I did, I went and I tried to keep it as smooth as I could without taking it to a whole other level which could’ve been done. But I answered it intelligently. So like I said this is the Hip Hop game. You know like I know there’s always been that element where situations can turn much bigger than what they should’ve been.
TheSource.com: Yeah, sensationalized.
Solar: Like in the west coast an east coast where you can have a whole coast of people ready to kill each other over some beef between two men.
TheSource.com: Now tell me about that. Have you had people actually threaten your life or come at you? Have you had any situations go down over this shit?
TheSource.com: No, not at all. I haven’t had anything of the sort. I’m a born and raised New Yorker and you know as they say certain things only God can speak on. So not at all. It is what it is. I come and go as I see fit. Never had a problem, anywhere at anytime. But like I was saying, the sensationalization of it just took on a life of it’s own without me adding any fuel to the fire, it just took off. Every day there was some crazy headline that had no base or reality but this was the angle that they took and that was the angle that the media responded to and understandable because that’s the kind of situation that were in unfortunately. But once you kind of let that cat out the bag it seems to me from my perspective without doing anything without adding onto it at all because I didn’t. I didn’t milk it. I didn’t try to keep it going. I just stepped away from it. It was like a fire that was out of control.
TheSource.com: Are you now sole CEO of Seven Grand Records?
Solar: Yeah I was sole CEO once Guru knew before he passed. Once Guru knew that the cancer was going to be fatal, we handled all of our business. We got all our lawyers together and we handled it properly.
TheSource.com: Will his catalog be extended?
Solar: Yeah Postumous music that he recorded at some point will be released for sale to the public. Some of it is going to be released just basically let people get a listen to some of it. There’ll be some stuff released over the next few weeks that will be accessible. But you know the whole idea again going back, we all know that anyone who has a half a wit in their head knows that if any of that were true, I’d be doing interviews from jail.
Check out TheSource.com for part three of the exclusive Solar interview.
-Sha Be Allah(@KingPenStatus)
