April 19th marks the first anniversary of Guru's death. What a tremendous loss for Hip Hop. He embodied the best of the genre and culture. In Guru's life and music there are a myriad of lessons for PR pros. Here's a cursory list of four, culled from my favourite Guru/Gangstarr songs: It's mostly tha voice: Guru's self-described…
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I wanna kill 'dead'. Not in all contexts. The word has its moments. For instance, I might need to mention that "Gandhi is dead'" or my "Grandfather is dead". The word is also useful when ominous signs appear on the horizon, such as "Oh no, a grizzly bear, we're fucking dead!" But I am sick…
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Hip hop lost one of its all-time greatest this week. Guru (aka Keith Elam) died on April 19th of a heart attack. He'd also been waging a prolonged battle with cancer. I'm a Gangstarr fan and love Guru's solo stuff. His body of work personifies the savvy smoothness unique to…
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I just got Jamel Shabazz's incredible book of photos, Back in the Days. In a nutshell, it documents hip hop and street culture (mostly in NYC) from 1980-1989. The incredibly varied sense of fashion in hip hop culture during the early days is striking. It was not all homogenous the…
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