Eight years on and still going strong...
This album is for real hip-hop fans, if you're in it for the populalarity this album is not for you. The same formula as before, but fresher, newer and somewhat wiser. Guru rejoins Premier after his first solo efort in 93'(Jazzmatazz) with Gang Starr's fourth album. A memorable track featuring the somewhat underated Nice & Smooth, is a highlight among many, including Code of the Streets, The Planet, Mostly Tha Voice and Tonz O' Guns. But this is an album where no track is better. Another classy performance from one of the few members of the Real School of Rap (eg;Busta Rhymes, Geto Boys, Das Efx, MOP and one or two others.)
As good as hiphop gets in the mid-90s
Let me just say this: The first half of Hard To Earn is among the best hiphop sides EVER. Maybe THE best. Tracks 4-6 in particular will take your head clean off. "Brainstorm" is the best battle rap I've ever heard--Guru lays to waste every MC with this one, fovever. Then "Tonz 'O' Gunz" attacks every shade gun-toting fool--he says it in a way you KNOW he's right, and it really packs a punch. And then my personal favorite, "The Planet" is the real man's man song, Guru's coming-of-age track, the one you can feel because you've lived it, no matter where your circumstance--complete with the largest, fattest, raggae-tinged beats ever made courtesy DJ Premier (did I mention Premier?). The album sags a bit in its second half, but the first half is well worth the price. A must-have for even marginal hip hop fans, in fact. It's classic.
GANGSTARR'S BEST
Hard to Earn is Gangstarr's best album to date from the intro to the last track is hot.
STANDOUT TRACKZ (1) MASS APPEAL (PURE BUTTER ILL SONG/TRACK PREMIER'S BEST) (2) CODE OF THE STREET
(3) SUCKERS NEED BODYGUARD
(4) WORDS FROM NUTCRACKER (THIS INTERLUDE ALONE IS BETTER THAN BULLCRAP THAT ARE OUT TODAY ONE LOVE TO GROUP HOME KID)
(5) COMIN FOR DATAZZ (BOOM BAP BEAT FROM PREMIER KINDA RESEMBLE THE ONE HE LACED FOR KRS ONE OUTTA HERE)
(6) DWYCK FEAT NICE & SMOOTH (ILL ILL ILL TRACK MATTER OF FACT YO WORD TO MY MOTHER I WAS AT ATLANTIC CITY WHEN THEY SHOT VIDEO FOR THAT TRACK)
YO GURU'S VERSE GOES LIKE THIS
(I chant eenie meenie,minie moe
I wreck da mic like a pimp pimps hoes
Here's how it goes I am a genius I mean this
I shake this you'll take this I'm kinda fiendish
You wish that you could come into my neighborhood
Meaning my mental state,Still I'm still 5 foot 8
Crazy as I wanna be cuz I make it orderly
You could say I'm sorta da boss so get lost
The brother dat will make you change your opinions
Dominions I'm in them when it's time to kick s**t from the heart,Plus I get a piece of the action
I'm feeling satisfaction from the street crowd reaction
Chumps pull guns when they feel afraid,too late when they dip
in the kick they get sprayed,Lemonade was a popular drink and still is,I get more props than stunts
A poet like Langston Hughes and can't lose when I cruise on the expressway,leaving the Bodega I say suave
Premier's got more beats than barns got hay
Clips are inserted into my gun
So I can take the money,never have to run). YO GURU IS MAD NICE SON KID GOT SKILLZ, ONE LOVE TO PREMO WORD LIFE..............................
Another Great Album
I like "Hard To Earn". Guru does his thing and Premier adds some great beats to the mix. Now Your Mine and Tonz of Gunz are my favorite of this album.
Gang Starr fall off the map
Wow somebody needs to tell the truth on this album. Back in 1994 when 'Hard To Earn' was released it was seen as a major letdown after 'Step In The Arena' and 'Daily Operation'. Not to me though, I could never understand why people dug these guys in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I like some of Primos work, but the limited skills of Guru seem to drag him down. Guru can't rap, plain & simple. The guy brings that lazy, slow, montone voice and has a flows about as exciting as a traffic jam.
'Hard To Earn' is a low point. The whole structure of the album is awful. Theres pointless interludes, songs that dont fit, Guru trying to be a gangsta rapper, 'DWYCK' has some of the most laughably bad verses ever from Nice & Smooth, and 'A Long Way To Go' rides a sample that had already been used much better by a different group. Cheesy hooks by Guru, lame raps, hit & miss production, this is a mess. The single 'Mass Appeal' is the one saving grace.
If you want to check how hard Guru holds Primo back, listen to Jeru the Damajas debut album 'The Sun Rises In the East'. This album was also released in 94 but Primo brings red hot beats and Jeru blazes them. I feel with Guru, Primo is just wasting his time. Too bad.
On "ALONGWAYTOGO," the second track from Gang Starr's Hard to Earn, rapper Guru draws a line in the sand between the "counterfeit" and the "legit" and challenges the listener, "If you don't know what you're doing, how the hell can you be real?" He goes on to explain that being "real" means walking the streets with a pistol in your belt and no bodyguards, ready to rumble when you don't get your "props." What he never bothers to explain is why this macho "Shaft" fantasy is more real than earning a business degree at Morehouse College and becoming a jazz fan (which is what Guru did in his earlier life as Keith Elam). Outflanked on the hip-hop/jazz front by Digable Planets and Us3, Gang Starr try to reestablish their hardcore credentials with an album that finds Guru rapping about sucker MCs and pistol-packing homeboys while Premier loops funky but repetitive beats behind him. --Geoffrey Himes
