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Jazzmatazz

7 Grand Records

On his Jazzmatazz project, Guru’s definition of soul is unleashed and displayed and allowed to seep into your consciousness. Making your hips sway. Making your pulse race. Making your head nod.
Like love and spirit, trying to neatly define the nature of soul is hard. Its very essence has perplexed and plagued philosophers, poets and b-boys, and giving a concise answer to the question “what is soul?” has proven to be daunting. Perhaps, because like love and spirit, soul is nuanced and felt. Perhaps, because soul is many things to many people. Ask Guru how he would define soul and he would define and he responds, “It’s from the heart. The heart and the soul are connected, so soul is from within. Soul is an eternal force.”
Strictly speaking, Guru, the vocal half of the acclaimed hip-hop machine that is Gang Starr, is not a soul artist. At least not in the time tested notion of the term. Yet over the course of his career, both with his partner DJ Premier and on his genre expanding Jazzmatazz projects, Guru has injected everything he does, from bebob to hip-hop and all that lies between, with something meaningful. You could call it soul. Guru does.

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