As the lyrical half of the trailblazing duo Gangstarr, Guru a.k.a. Baldhead Slick has continued to charter new territory in the field of Hip Hop despite the rumors that he and DJ Premier no longer exist together as Gangstarr. Ever since the Jazzamatazz series, Mr. Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal, has consistently set trends and influenced an entire generation of MCs without selling out to the corporate end of the spectrum of Hip Hop. After expanding his audience across seas, Guru has formed another bond behind the boards with Solar(not to be confused with MC Solaar), the producer of his debut solo album Version 7.0 The Street Scriptures and his latest effort Guru 8.0: Lost and Found on Guru and Solar’s joint independent label venture, 7 Grand Records. TheSource.com got a chance to chop it up with Guru and Solar at Dinosaur BBQ in Harlem about the label, the new album, and how their preserving the best part of Hip Hop for the fans as well as themselves.

TheSource.com: Why do you feel that real Hip Hop isn’t as popular nowadays in the digital age as it once was?

Guru: I think what happened was that a lot of it changed with the “bling” era. The bling era came in after the “Golden Era”. The bling era came in and that was it. After that, you didn’t hear much from New York, which is the root of Hip Hop. After that, you got just this whole wave of materialism, this whole wave of everybody talking about what they got, the big butt girls, etc. and it got away from what we know as real Hip Hop.

Solar: It’s a complex scenario. I mean, you’ve got all kinds of contributing factors to that. To try to sum it up briefly, my major opinion is that the money factor started to outweigh everything else. Once there’s a state of imbalance in any business, venture, or culture, it’s going to lead top corruption, despair, breakdown, or collapse and I believe that’s what you see now with the collapse of the major label system.

TheSource.com: How do you feel that the Hip Hop media and the critics have played a part in that breakdown?

Guru: What happens is that you have some journalists that are still obviously dedicated to the culture and the art form just like there are artists that are dedicated to the culture and the art form that are uplifting that and upholding that, but then you’ve got the mass media that wants to sensationalize. They want to get the “big story”, into the propaganda. For instance, like the whole beef thing. That became everything in Hip Hop. I think that’s still happening right now. I think a lot of the media fed into that as opposed to really upholding the culture and the art form. In general, you’ve got everything being corporatized. You got all these corporate entities involving themselves in the culture and flipping it to their advantage. So a lot of artists became pitchmen for products as opposed to maintaining their artistry.

Solar: You’ve got to understand that America is a capitalist country and it’s based on capitalism. Every aspect of American business is based on capitalism. At the same time, we’ve seen Hip Hop born out of a capitalist system, therefore, the principles of Hip Hop does not run counter to Hip Hop. Hip Hop and capitalism does go together, but again, I think that we really don’t have responsible capitalism. If we could see that again in Hip Hop, I think we’re good and basically that’s what Guru and Solar represent. At the end of the day, I want a nice car, I want nice home, I want to see my brothers and sisters prosper, but at the same time not at the expense of something that’s going to uplift and make a way for others to come and have things that they need to be able to express themselves artistically and pursue their dreams and ambitions.

TheSource.com: Did that have any influence on you releasing this album in Britain first before it was released in the United States?

Guru: Actually, it was leaked in Britain. It’s not officially out. We heard about that. It was up for two days, but now it’s back down. Everything is going to be simultaneously released now.

Solar: I can tell you this. In those two days, there were some numbers!

TheSource.com: What makes the Lost and Found album different from the other albums that were released under your 7 Grand label?

Solar: To add on to that, Guru has been known worldwide for Jazzamatazz as much as he’s been known for his other work with Gangstarr. The growth with Jazzamatazz is still there, but in the real Hip Hop arena, the artists from Guru’s era or prior has been limited, so basically now, we’re breaking new territory. We’re chartering new areas of development in terms of Guru and of course myself. Where do you place me? I don’t come from that era, so what I’m adding on is just what I see.

Guru: Anytime you have a producer/MC team, as they go along of course the chemistry is going to grow, so the chemistry now has become more intense with Solar and myself. Also, with this album, we weren’t constrained to a “Jazzamatazz” format. The last two releases were Jazzamatazz related, so musically and conceptually, that’s a little different than a pure Hip Hop record. We have the number 1 Hip Hop/Jazz act on the planet. We could have just been coastin’ out as those Hip Hop/Jazz dudes and let it ride with that. For us, being that Hip Hop runs through our veins, we felt compelled to put this album out. This was something we’ve wanted to do. We’ve been working on it for a couple of years after coming back from touring and so forth. We did a lot of tracks and narrowed it down to the 17 that we have on it now. This is important and crucial because Hip Hop is going in a way where you couldn’t even tell what was real hip Hop, so we wanted to define it for ourselves and for those heads who are concerned.