Gang Starr: Moment Of Truth

It used to be that the DJ/MC team was the rule in hip hop, not the exception. Run-D.M.C. and Jam Master Jay, Eric B. and Rakim, Public Enemy and Terminator X: Not many groups were composed of just MCs, and even rarer were solo DJs. About the only big-name DJ still matched to a group is The RZA with The Wu-Tang Clan, and his trademark dark beats are more the product of an assembly-line mentality than a true artistic collaboration. With DJs like Grandmaster Flash once again popular thanks to the likes of turntablists Invisible Scratch Pickles, X-ecutioners, and DJ Shadow, it's been the DJs ditching the MCs, and not the other way around. Nowadays, rappers perform without a DJ, and the homogenized results on the radio show where the streamlined approach of puffy producers like Sean Combs has brought us. That's what makes the reunion of Gang Starr's DJ Premier and Guru so appealing. Guru explicitly acknowledges at the start of the epic, 80-minute Moment Of Truth that there has always been a Gang Starr formula: "We update it with the times… But it's always Guru and Premier." When the great, boastful comeback "You Know My Steez" opens the album proper, it's hard to believe Gang Starr had been defunct for four years. Guru's razor-sharp rhymes have never sounded stronger, and Premier, who has kept his skills intact in the interim, shows why he has always been one of the most in-demand DJs in hip hop. Elsewhere, the presence of such initially suspect collaborators as K-Ci and JoJo from Jodeci (on "Royalty") actually works. In fact, there's not a wack track on Moment Of Truth, which seethes with a noble purpose and glides with the grace only experience can provide.