You rang?
Fuck showers and flowers. April is in fact Gang Starr Month here at T.R.O.Y. Tomorrow you're getting two Gang Starr posts in one day, and another two will be arriving on Thursday. And more will be coming down the pike all month. So we had a meeting and asked, how do we get the readers involved?
Well, it's simple. In this journey we're the journal and you're the journalists. We're posing the question to you:
"Where were you when you heard a Gang Starr song for the first time?"
Towards the end of the month we'll publish the responses. There are several ways to enter:
1) Simply reply to this thread.
2) Send us a tweet - @troyblog
6) Post in the thread at Skypager
Please keep your response to one sentence. We look forward to reading and publishing them. Forward this call any way you know how.
At RJ's crib, watching the video (Positivity) on Rap City.
ReplyDeleteHonestly.. I dont know for sure. Gang Starr is honestly an act that crept into my pores and become as synonomous to me as hip-hop itself at some point.
ReplyDeletewhats rap city (muchmusic canada) saw Just To Get A Rep video.
ReplyDeleteI heard "Above the Clouds" at my local megamart. I scanned "Moment of Truth" into the machine, crossed my fingers that the system wouldn't recognize the explicit lyrics sticker and deny this 14 year-old entry, and skipped to the song with Inspectah Deck. I was big into Wu-Tang (of course), and I knew the Rebel INS always came hard on his guest shots. I didn't know what i was in for, though. The beat on that song changed my life. It sounded like it was made in an intergalactic vegetable garden. Also, there was something about that other fella's voice...
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I was happy I had enough dough on me to walk home with the album in my grasp.
On some alternative video show that had NitzerEbb, Front 242 and them BLAM Gangstarr with Manifest..
ReplyDeleteI heard about them when I was having my first sleep over party. We were all sitting around watching Obama's inauguration speech, and I put the cd in.
ReplyDeleteJfk 2 Lax. The year was 1998. My buddy had been telling me how good the lp (Moment of Truth) was and how i needed to give it a spin. I was listening to a lot of stuff at the time. aceyalone, all nat, AotP Vinyl, black stars first lp, early looptroop, show and ag, styles of beyond. I dunno.. I was a underground hiphop proponent. For some reason, I always felt that Gang Starr was too 'commercial' or me even though i couldn't think of a single track i'd heard of to give me that since of elitism.
ReplyDeleteI had finished my 3rd symester of community college and was at a party. I had taken the prom queen from the graduating class that year to a party. We ended up hooking up at this house party and ended up pushing in my regaurds in the master bedroom of the house.
After all was said and done, my friend mentioned earlier put the cd 'moment of truth' in and skipped to 'jfk 2 lax'. I could hear it through the bedroom walls got up and went out to grab a beer only to forget i left homegirl in the bedroom and never came back.
She still tells me to this day (when i see her) that i left her naked in some random bed "because i 'had' to hear the rest of that stupid 'gang wars' cd."
Either way i can tell you the exact time and place I first heard gang starr. December 14th, 1998 at 11:42 pm.
Since then, I still to this day consider 'moment of truth' in my top ten and their thier prior 4 i hold dear too. Wasn't too fond of the owners. But, its damn near impossible to top the impossible.
-k/
i was in high school when i first heard words i manifest a buddy taped the song off of whpk here in chicago
ReplyDeleteThe song was "Step In The Arena", a friend of mine heard it then passed the CD to me. Heard "Just to Get A Rep" right after, and from that moment I was hooked.
ReplyDelete5th grade. Living Room. Rap City. Mass Appeal. Epic.
ReplyDeleteJust to get a rep, 13-14 years old, video on Yo MTV Raps, jaw dropped.
ReplyDelete1989. I was hanging out at my friend's house watching videos on 'The Box' when the Manifest video came on. The song was so good that instead of going out to play football, we waited an hour until someone else requested it so that we could see it again. From that day on, I went to the record store faithfully twice a week just to buy that cassette as soon as it dropped. I think I still have it somewhere in a box.
ReplyDeleteFirst time I heard Gang to the Starr was when I was selling Guru a 40 and he tried to freestyle a crude rendition of ex to the next as payment. I tried to hit him with a baseball bat but he was so short I could not reach that low. OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
ReplyDeleteWell, I won't get much cred for this one, but the first GangStarr song I really paid attention to was "Right Where You Stand." I was about 12 when it came out and just getting into good rap music. I bought "The Ownerz" and bumped it throughout 7th grade. From there, I just had to have more, so I slowly but surely bought every album before that. I remember being at summer camp and listening to "We Got Gunz," and becoming incredibly pissed off when Fat Joe ripped off Biggie to start his verse. So, my love for GangStarr started right around the same time as my hate for Fat Joe. Oh yeah, M.O.P. was the shit on that song too. May the Guru and Premier never die.
ReplyDeleteWatching TV at my Grandma's house and Manifest came on Pump It Up.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to run my yap a bit on this subject, if you will-
ReplyDeleteThe first Gangstarr song I heard was 'Manifest',but that's not what got me hooked in for life.
The song that got me was 'Just To Get A Rep'. I was about 14 and living with my Moms at the time. I got home from school and would watch Ralph McDaniel's Video Music Box religiously.
That day that 'Just To Get A Rep' got played, I went bananas. That was the most incredible sample I had ever heard.
The story was great, too. I mean, stick-up kids WERE out to tax in a LOT of neighborhoods at the time. Things were wild. You couldn't roam one block away from your own area without being ready to defend your pockets from being run.
Shit, snatching Starter hats and making sure yours didn't get scooped was an everyday pastime. And don't get me started on the 8 Ball jacket robberies phenomenon.LOL, wasn't funny then, though.
Everything about that video was on point,down to the hoodies that we were all rocking. I remember bugging Maw Dukes to get me a Georgetown hoodie like in the video. I couldn't find one so I happily ended up with a Syracuse one.
I could probably write a short story on the day I copped 'Moment Of Truth', too. Point is, Gangstarr is an entity that made more of an impact than many give them credit for.
I heard Gang Starr for the first time playing streetball with some friends, one of whom brought the boombox and CD. The song was Above The Clouds, and I got instantly hooked by Gurus and Decks verses and this irresistible beat so much that it distracted me from the game.
ReplyDeleteLater, I insisted on replaying the song because it was so dope and even now, Above The Clouds is still my most played song in iTunes.
I was working as a public defender in the South Bronx the birthplace of hip hop!!
ReplyDeleteMatt
came home from high school back in 8th or 9th grade, and it was old skool wednesday on Rap City. They played the Mass Appeal video, and i was hooked right after that. that beat is very infectious. i remembered the lyrics to the song about 3-4 time i heard it! this was around late '96 early '97.
ReplyDeleteUsed to hear "Here Is The Proof" all the time on KZSU, didnt know it was the G to the A-N-G, so technically the first time I heard a song and knew it was them was when I saw the "Words I Manifest" video on a Saturday morning episode of Yo! Raps.
ReplyDelete-bottomlesspedro
Seventh grade, while playing "Thrasher: Skate & Destroy" on my PlayStation. That game had the dopest soundtrack of any I've ever played; that's the first I also heard Tribe, EPMD, Ultramag, Bam, etc...but "Just To Get A Rep" was the song that really resonated with me.
ReplyDeleteHooked, baby.
Um, I was probably in my dorm room at Duke freshman year, downloading whatever crap on Kazaa RapReviews.com said was classic.
ReplyDeleteWords that I manifest, 1989, I saw this on videotape because my g-parents refused to get cable, so my uncle's friend used to record Yo! MTV Raps for us.
ReplyDeleteI think I saw "DWYCK" on MTV in '94, but I digress...I've never been much into Gangstarr. Primo's beats are great, but Guru's delivery and lyricism are almost soporific.
ReplyDelete@ Guru's favorite liquor store owner: When leaving your establishment, did he say "suave"?
ReplyDeleteAt my godfather's house b/c his daughter used to watch my brother and I after school. His daughter was watching The Box and I think it was Mass Appeal that came on... rediscovered many years later at a smoke and chill party w/ my friends in N. Philly
ReplyDeleteI think the first time I heard of Gang Starr was on P-Fine's show way down in the 80s side of the dial (can't even remember the station anymore but best believe I still got the tapes to prove it!) and the song was the original mix of Manifest! that joint was crazy!
ReplyDeletei heard about gang starr in a video game i used to play as a kid haha.i believe it was dave mirra pro bmx. i dont rememeber if the cut was mass appeal or moment of truth. it was like 98 or 99. either way i was hooked.... still am
ReplyDeletekwame's "the rhythm" in no way, shape, or form compares with Father MC's "I'll Do 4 U"...despite all the clever splicing of drums together wow, dats rilly incredible kwame, nobody ever though ov dat b 4 U !
ReplyDeleteamazing talent u have their...actually i like the sample better then those drums my favorite james brown drum sample is pharcyde "mr. officer"
bye now
first time i heard gangstarr i was makin luuvv at an orgy celebrating the 3rd anniversary of 9/11
ReplyDeleteRochester, NY. Circa 1989-90. Rap City with Da Mayor..."Manifest" video and the whole Malcolm X motif...classic HIPHOP, dubbed the whole tape from my man when it came out. PEACE
ReplyDelete"Manifest" off a friends single when it came out...I was hooked on that freaking loop...have rarely complained about a Primo beat and I actually salivate when I hear a new one...best hip hop producer period.
ReplyDelete