Disco de Gang Starr: “Moment of Truth [Clean]”

Catch the best duo hip hop history has to offer at their personal best and you've got the "Moment of Truth". Primo has never before strung together an album of beats so tight. Almost every single track is a classic, with memorable melody and memorable lyrics. I honestly haven't heard the album in over a year now and I can still recall the intricacies and lyrics of each track. This is one of those albums that you throw in and just let it ride. No need to skip tracks. What's the last album you could actually say that about? I killed this album to death when it came out and I always find myself revisiting it when hip hop lets me down. This is one of the best albums in hip hop, period.

The title describes it, as long as groups like Gang Starr represent, the underground will never die. And that's exactly what i wanna hear, underground rap and not this fake azz commercial radio hip hop stuff ! This Album is real, DJing and MCing in it's purest form, Primo's beats are burning my ears and the lyrics of Guru are very deep and they hittin' me everytime. This album got 20 cuts of pure magic - but what would you expect from the dopest producer of all time? I gave this album five stars because i couldn't find a sixth one.

1998 was a very hard time for hip hop. Corporate endeavors and shiny suits started taking over. The golden era passed and a new wave of new jacks flooded the scene with materialistic tales that have carried well over to the 21st century. Criminally, hip hop became the only industry to put an age limit on rappers. However, if sales reflected talent, than Gangstarr's 1998 masterpiece would have gone quadruple platinum.

Guru and Primo have never disappointed me, however, I don't know what they were smoking when they made 'Moment of Truth'. This was the album pure hip hop lovers fell in love with when the mass industry started to put numbers first, passion second. The album starts off with a bang on the single, "You Know My Steez,". Guru drops bombs over Primo's sinisterly relaxed beat. You could tell that Guru stepped his game up lyrically, especially over the sick piano keys on, "Work". The gifted ones talent is on full display with lines like, "Now I'ma start collectin props connectin plots/ networkin' like a conference 'cause the nonsense is yet to stop/ Jakes wanna shake me down, haters wanna take me down/ Break me down, CLAP all they heard was the sound/ Yo I scoped it out, I took your weak dream and choked it out/ Your girl ain't really got no a**, she just poked it out". Arguably, the best verse comes from a guest. Inspectah Deck committs verbal murder on the Asian sounding, "Above the Clouds". "JFK 2 Lax" is a personal favorite as Guru tells a heartfelt story of his run-ins with the law and proclaims he know he's a role model, where most rap artists would tell their fanbase not to follow them down the same path or something much more generic.

At 20 songs, the hits just keep on coming. To this day, I will forever be baffled why the title track never made the greatest hits cd. Guru's intropective lyrics on that are timeless and the beat is among Primo's best (nothing's seeing "Come Clean"). "What I'm Here 4" was my favorite, due to the classic piano loop which again complements the gifted one seamlessly. Krumbsnatcha nearly massacres "Make 'Em Pay" to the same effect that Inspectah Deck did with his verse. Another standout is "Next Time" with a catchy as hell horn loop where Guru knocks one dimensional emcees out the box.

'Moment of Truth' still sounds fresh to this day. It is one of the greatest, post golden era, hip hop records ever made. To end this review, peep the words of the Guru, "The objective, is to surely demolish/ The chances of the wack takin all the dollars/ Support the brothers who are truly gifted/ This way, the odds, could never be shifted"!

This is easily in my opinion Gang Starr's best album. I am a huge fan of Gang Starr's and when this came out I was so happy after I finished listening to the album. Every song on the album is just ILL, I mean this is so slept on. But, why? I would debate it's best work Premier's done, and for Guru's rhymes JUST DOPE. If you consider yourself a Hip Hop fan, or a supposed to be fan of Gang Starr. GET IT!

Best Tracks: Royalty, Above the Clouds, Moment of Truth, Next Time.

What impresses me most about Moment of Truth isn't Gangstarr's refusal to surrender to today's commercial standards. Nor is it that after a decade in the game that they came up with arguably their best release with album number five. Though these two musical aesthetics are impressive, the fact that there was only three cleared samples on twenty full length tracks is just ridicilous. Just think about it for a second. Who scratches more hooks than Primo? He has subtly perfected the art of sampling and combined it with his wizardry of the drum. With this release DJ Premier cements his legendary status as a masterful producer. With most projects he works on, Premier only does a cut or two which are dope but only give a sample of his ability. Though not commercial, many recruit the producer for a flashy cuts with a hard edge to it. With Moment of Truth, Premier outweighs any work he has done before because he is allowed to push his creativity to its highest limits. Of course Guru does his part to. But what stands out this go round is that he appears as humble as ever. No longer trying to prove himself as a worhty MC, Guru is now the man who's been there, done that and knows what it takes. Unlike most albums that try to get as many guest as possible, Moment of Truth reigns supreme because the guest actually enhance the tracks on which they appear. Two visitors who give standout perfomances are Scarface on "Betrayal" and Inspectah Deck on "Above the Clouds". With no blatant, ready for radio singles and no avant-garde habits (though very original), Moment of Truth doesn't give Gangstarr an entirely new fanbase. It did go gold (their first). So with a public that appears to have a growing appreciation for true hip-hop, 2000 may have something very special in store for Gangstarr.