Hip Hop

Author’s Note: I originally wrote this piece in April 2010, just days after we lost Keith Elam, better known to the world as Guru. At the time, listing out my favorite tracks was a way to process the loss of an absolute giant. Years later, these beats and rhymes haven’t aged a day. What follows is an updated look at that original list – and why Gang Starr’s catalog should remain mandatory listening. – Updated on 8/14/2026

The best Gang Starr songs bring Guru’s steady, unsentimental delivery together with DJ Premier’s snappy drums, samples, and supernatural instinct for finding memorable loops. My personal five faves are “Take It Personal,” “Who’s Gonna Take the Weight?,” “DWYCK,” “Words I Manifest,” and “Mass Appeal.” But those five are just the first rounds of a a full clip. DavePye.com looks at why Gang Starr’s mass appeal still knocks louder than a trunk full of Cerwin-Vegas.

Why Gang Starr Stood Out Early

By the time No More Mr. Nice Guy dropped in 1989, the genre had started to gain remarkable momentum for such a young sound. As a result of the additional “competition”, we became used to rappers coming at us from all angles with a myriad of styles, questionable fashion and hair style choices and other creative differentiators.

The playful peacenik absurdity of De La Soul, the clown-prince energy of Biz Markie, the booming Kangol funk of EPMD, the bohemian vibe of A Tribe Called Quest and Flava Flav’s obsession with clocks, to name only a few examples.

And then there was Gang Starr.

While their first album cover shows both members wearing matching hats some might describe as “afrocentric”, that’s where any thematic pageantry began and ended. Like a single flash in that photo studio. Why? because they didn’t need any of all that. For them, respect and recognition was never hard to earn (see what I did there?)

Guru stood out through the quiet, icy weight of his composure. That composure was not a lack of technique or personality. Guru could be severe, amused, argumentative, or quietly dismissive, often without changing the temperature of his voice. He did not need a frantic flow to establish authority.

That rare kind of effortless gravitas reminds me of that Goodfellas line, “Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn’t have to move for anybody.”

DJ Premier was (and still is) in a league of his own as a producer. He gifted Guru the appropriate soundscape: hard drums, brief musical phrases, scratches used as punctuation, and enough open space for a line to land. The pair made records that sounded planned without feeling overworked. Masterfully constructed and grittily primitive at the same time.

That Unmistakable Preemo Sound

DJ Premier was (and still is) in a league of his own as a producer. He gifted Guru the appropriate soundscape: hard drums, brief musical phrases, scratches used as punctuation, and enough open space for a line to land. The pair made records that sounded planned without feeling overworked. Masterfully constructed and grittily primitive at the same time.

I don’t have an ocean of data to support this claim, but I doubt there were many people – upon hearing the legendary triple bass drum thumps of Take it Personal for the first time – who didn’t drop everything to ask, “Who the fuck is this?” like Biggie at the beginning of Warning. I’d already grown very fond of Words I Manifest by 1992, but their sound evolved dramatically between the first 2 albums and I definitely uttered those very words myself. But we’ll get to that.

Premier’s best beats rarely try to impress you with how much layered material they contain. None of them do, really. If anything, they are magically sparse. A drum pattern with a little snap. A scratch dropped exactly where it belongs. Then enough empty space for Guru, Nas, Jeru, or whoever else happens to be holding the mic to find the rhythm inside a sentence.

That restraint is part of the trick. Plenty of producers can find a great sample. Far fewer know what to leave out. Fewer still can hear something that barely sounds musical and recognize it’s aural potential.

Think of Jeru the Damaja’s Come Clean, where those strange, hollow percussion tones are chopped and pitched until they sound like water droplets forming a melody. Premier finds sounds that don’t register as potential instrument replacements then makes them the centerpiece of a track. Or take Nas’s Nas Is Like, with its eerie, birdlike chirps turned into one of the most recognizable ideas in Premier’s catalog. On Gang Starr’s The ? Remainz, the crackle and static from a water-damaged record become part of the beat itself.

That is Premier’s innate instinct: not just finding the loop, but hearing music in something that barely sounds musical. It’s not something you can learn in school – or anywhere else. Sometimes he is sampling sound rather than music. A drip becomes a melody. A chirp becomes a hook. Static becomes atmosphere. He takes something most producers would hear as noise and makes it feel almost… inevitable? Let’s go with that. Magic should be hard to explain.

On This Page

1. Why Gang Starr Sounded Different
2. The Five Best Gang Starr Songs
3. Why These Five Made the Cut
4. The Songs I Left Out
5. Gang Starr FAQs
6. One More Word for Guru

The Five Best Gang Starr Songs

5. “Take It Personal”

I first heard “Take It Personal” at Vermont Academy in 1992. Jamal, a student from Brooklyn, got Daily Operation on cassette on the day it came out and played it constantly for the next few days. By the end of that run, the song had done what a great record does: it had stopped sounding like a new release and started sounding unavoidable.

The piano figure is simple, yet Premier gives it an unfriendly edge by leaving it exposed between the drums. Nothing in the arrangement asks for admiration. Guru does not make a theatrical case for taking offence; he sounds as if he has already decided that the matter is settled. That restraint keeps the song from becoming a routine threat record. It is direct, cold, and compact, with no wasted effort spent making the point seem larger than it is.

The early 1990s produced enough good rap to make any list of the period look arbitrary, a fact that shows up in my forgotten 1990s hip-hop list. “Take It Personal” keeps its place here for a simpler reason. It was an entry point, then it proved durable enough to survive familiarity.

4. “Who’s Gonna Take the Weight?”

The opening whistle on “Who’s Gonna Take the Weight?” should be irritating. Premier repeats it until it stops sounding like an interruption and becomes the source of the record’s tension. The drums do not soothe that tension. They tighten it. By the time Guru enters, the beat has made its terms plain: this is not going to drift past in the background.

Guru meets that pressure with an argument rather than a performance of anger. His delivery has force, but he does not confuse volume with conviction. The song deals with responsibility and social pressure without turning into a lecture, then leaves enough sharp edges in the rhymes to keep the message from becoming dutiful. The result is blunt without being clumsy. It sounds like a record built to make the listener pay attention, not congratulate it for having a serious subject.

The track could have collapsed under its own seriousness. Instead, it stays alert. Premier keeps the beat spare enough that every new sound changes the mood, and Guru keeps the subject moving by returning to the challenge in the title. He is not offering a sermon or a slogan. He is asking who is prepared to carry the burden after the talk has ended. That gives the record a tension that has lasted better than plenty of well-meaning rap songs from the same period.

3. “DWYCK”

“DWYCK” gives the list some needed release. Guru, Greg Nice, and Smooth B treat the record as an opportunity to outdo one another, yet nobody turns it into a tedious demonstration of skill. The beat has bounce, the verses have room, and the whole track carries the pleasure of three seasoned MCs trading ideas without trying to manufacture chemistry. It is a party record made by people who knew the party had to have a beat worth returning to.

Its path onto an album was almost accidental. In a 2019 interview with Billboard, Premier said “DWYCK” began as the B-side to “Take It Personal.” Nice & Smooth were returning a favour after Gang Starr let them use the “Manifest” instrumental, and the label passed on adding the track to Daily Operation. Premier later put it on Hard to Earn. Good decision. A song this loose and complete should not have remained a collector’s item.

Plenty of guest-heavy rap songs become a queue of people waiting for their turn. “DWYCK” feels more social than that. The MCs hear one another, take cues from the beat, and keep the exchange moving. It is a small distinction, but it is the difference between a collaboration that sounds booked and one that sounds like it had to happen. Gang Starr’s tougher records get more attention in serious criticism. This one reminds you that Premier and Guru knew how to enjoy themselves.

2. “Words I Manifest”

“Words I Manifest” comes from a Gang Starr that had not yet settled into the exact shape most people remember. The drums are less polished, Guru pushes his delivery harder, and the partnership has more roughness around the edges. None of that counts against it. You can hear the duo testing the balance that later records would make sound natural: a beat with a jazz-minded texture, an MC who refuses to rush, and a mood that does not need a crowded arrangement.

The full title matters. “Words I Manifest” is not the finished Gang Starr sound, and that is why it earns this spot. It catches Guru and Premier before their habits became signatures. Early work is often praised for being promising, which can be a polite way of saying it is not ready. This record is ready enough. Its imperfections are part of the case.

1. “Mass Appeal”

“Mass Appeal” is my favourite Gang Starr song. It makes polish sound suspicious. Premier’s musical phrase is graceful, the drums are clean, and Guru rides the arrangement with enough distance to keep it from becoming easy listening. The record feels accessible without asking permission to be liked. That balance is difficult to pull off, particularly in a genre where too much smoothness can drain the personality from a track.

The joke behind the song helps explain its appeal. Premier has said that he and Guru were making fun of radio’s habit of flattening hip-hop into something bland and safe, an approach that gave “Mass Appeal” its elevator-music idea. Then the parody became one of Gang Starr’s biggest hits. There is no contradiction to solve. The song works on its own terms: the hook is memorable, the beat is immaculate, and Guru never lets the record forget that it is mocking a system built to make everything harmless.

That is why it sits at No. 1. “Mass Appeal” sounds as good on a first listen as it does after you know every turn. It has enough craft to reward close attention and enough confidence to avoid demanding it.

The song gets cited so often that it can become a shorthand answer, which is a dull fate for a record this carefully made. Put it beside “Take It Personal,” and the contrast is useful. Both tracks have hard drums and Guru at the centre, yet one presses the listener into a corner and the other slips into the room with a polished smile. Gang Starr could do both. The difference is part of what makes the catalogue hard to reduce to one mood.

Why These Five Made the Cut

These tracks cover the part of Gang Starr’s run that matters most to me: an early version of the formula, the pressure of Step in the Arena, the precision of Daily Operation, the fun of a great collaboration, and a hit record that arrived with a smirk. The ranking does not try to give every album equal representation. It gives the five songs their proper order in my memory.

Rank	Song	Album	Year	Why It Made My Five
5	“Take It Personal”	Daily Operation	1992	The personal entry point, with piano and drums that never lose their bite.
4	“Who’s Gonna Take the Weight?”	Step in the Arena	1991	The whistle, the tension, and Guru’s refusal to overplay the message.
3	“DWYCK”	Hard to Earn	1994	Three MCs having more fun than most rap records permit.
2	“Words I Manifest”	No More Mr. Nice Guy	1989	An early, rougher version of the sound that would soon become unmistakable.
1	“Mass Appeal”	Hard to Earn	1994	A radio joke that became a near-perfect rap single.

The Songs I Left Out

“Moment of Truth” belongs in any serious conversation about Gang Starr, and “Above the Clouds” has a guest verse that could make a sensible person rebuild the whole list. “Work,” “Full Clip,” “Code of the Streets,” and “Just to Get a Rep” each have supporters with cases worth hearing. A ranking made by a room full of fans would likely push two or three of those tracks above “Words I Manifest.” Fair enough.

I am not trying to create the only Gang Starr starter list, and I would not hand this exact five to a listener who wanted the broadest possible introduction. “Mass Appeal,” “Moment of Truth,” and “Above the Clouds” would be difficult to leave out of that conversation. This is a different exercise: the records that kept pulling me back. My older post about rap is enough evidence that I am capable of turning nostalgia into a bad argument, so I have tried to keep that temptation in view. These five still hold up for me.

Gang Starr FAQs

1. What Is Gang Starr’s Most Famous Song?

“Mass Appeal” is the answer most listeners would give. It was one of Gang Starr’s biggest hits and remains the most direct place to start for someone who knows the group’s name but not its catalogue.

2. What Is Gang Starr Known For?

Gang Starr is known for the pairing of Guru’s measured, deep voice with DJ Premier’s sample-based production. Their records could hold jazz, funk, battle rhymes, street detail, humour, and social commentary without becoming crowded.

3. Was “Mass Appeal” Really Made as a Joke?

Yes. Premier has described “Mass Appeal” as a response to radio-friendly hip-hop that he thought had become too bland. The joke worked too well: the song became one of Gang Starr’s defining records.

4. What Happened to Guru?

Guru, born Keith Elam, died in New York on April 19, 2010, aged 48, after a battle with cancer. He left behind a catalogue that has not needed a sentimental rewrite to keep its force.

One More Word for Guru

Guru’s place in hip-hop does not depend on a memorial speech from me. Put on “Mass Appeal,” then “Take It Personal,” then the Gang Starr song you think I was foolish to leave out. The records can carry the rest of the argument.