4.

Gang Starr – Moment Of Truth
I had this dubbed on tape for my car, along with Crooklyn Cuts Volume III Tape C and in the rare instance that I wasn’t listening to one of these I was listening to Emerson College radio, which was mostly hip hop and then techno later at night. I wasn’t really ‘hearing’ Guru even though he really locked up hard on this record and a track like ‘She Knows What She Wants’ in retrospect has a Robert Altman vibe to it. Premier was everything for me. ‘Robin Hood Theory’ = my education on the aesthetics of a cut. I still obsess about it. That, and Scarface’s verse on ‘Betrayal’ is really dank. Gang Starr’s swansong and finest moment.