Today is a very sad day. Guru was one of the purest and truest. I dont even know what to say to be honest. There’s a lot of shadiness going on with the whole situation. Last month I posted a blog about Guru’s situation with the videos that his nephew released spilling the beans on Solar, who forged the signatures of Gurus relatives to forbid them from seeing him while he was in a coma.

This letter which was apparently written by Guru to his fans stinks of Solar. There’s no way he’d taint the Gangstarr memory like that.

I, Guru, am writing this letter to my fans, friends and loved ones around the world. I have had a long battle with cancer and have succumbed to the disease. I have suffered with this illness for over a year. I have exhausted all medical options. I have a non-profit organization called Each One Counts dedicated to carrying on my charitable work on behalf of abused and disadvantaged children from around the world and also to educate and research a cure for this terrible disease that took my life. I write this with tears in my eyes, not of sorrow but of joy for what a wonderful life I have enjoyed and how many great people I have had the pleasure of meeting.

My loyal best friend, partner and brother, Solar, has been at my side through it all and has been made my health proxy by myself on all matters relating to myself. He has been with me by my side on my many hospital stays, operations, doctors visits and stayed with me at my home and cared for me when I could not care for myself. Solar and his family is my family and I love them dearly and I expect my family, friends, and fans to respect that, regardless to anybody’s feelings on the matter. It is my wish that counts. This being said I am survived by the love of my life, my sun KC, who I trust will be looked after by Solar and his family as their own. Any awards or tributes should be accepted, organized approved by Solar on behalf myself and my son until he is of age to except on his own.

I do not wish my ex-DJ to have anything to do with my name likeness, events tributes etc. connected in anyway to my situation including any use of my name or circumstance for any reason and I have instructed my lawyers to enforce this. I had nothing to do with him in life for over 7 years and want nothing to do with him in death. Solar has my life story and is well informed on my family situation, as well as the real reason for separating from my ex-DJ. As the sole founder of GangStarr, I am very proud of what GangStarr has meant to the music world and fans. I equally am proud of my Jazzmatazz series and as the father of Hip-Hop/Jazz. I am most proud of my leadership and pioneering efforts on Jazzmatazz 4 for reinvigorating the Hip-Hop/Jazz genre in a time when music quality has reached an all time low. Solar and I have toured in places that I have never been before with GangStarr or Jazzmatatazz and we gained a reputation for being the best on the planet at Hip-Hop/Jazz, as well as the biggest and most influential Hip-Hop/Jazz record with Jazzmatazz 4 of the decade to now. The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time. And we as a team were not afraid to push the envelope. To me this is what true artists do! As men of honor we stood tall in the face of small mindedness, greed, and ignorance. As we fought for music and integrity at the cost of not earning millions and for this I will always be happy and proud, and would like to thank the million fans who have seen us perform over the years from all over the world. The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time and is my most creative and experimental to date. I hope that our music will receive the attention it deserves as it is some of the best work I have done and represents some of the best years of my life.

Here’s a reminder of last months incident.

First Michael Jackson, now this. Autotune is blossoming, they’re trying to kill music. Without getting all conspiracy theory about this, it’s all very shady.

Thank you GURU for sharing your gift.

The famous Afghan girl Sharbat Gula belongs to an Afghan Tribe called the Pashtun.

Steve McCurry went to go find her after two decades only to track her down in a remote village. The young looking Sharbat at the time was on the front cover of National Geographic magazine and went on to become one of the most famous faces in the world. Steve captured this memorable photo of green-eyed Afghan girl at some refugee camp in Pakistan.Early life

In her early life Sharbat Gula was orphaned during the Soviet Union’s bombing of Afghanistan and sent to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan in 1984. Her village was attacked by Soviet helicopter gunships sometime in the early 1980s. The Soviet strike killed her parents forcing her, her siblings and grandmother to hike over the mountains to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan.

In her Adult life she married Rahmat Gul in the late 1980s and returned to Afghanistan in 1992. Gula had three daughters: Robina, Zahida, and Alia. A fourth daughter died in infancy. Gula has expressed the hope that her girls will receive the education she was never able to complete.

The early picture in her life was taken in 1984 at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984, Gula’s picture was taken by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry on Kodachrome color slide film. Gula was one of the students in an informal school within the refugee camp; McCurry, rarely given the opportunity to photograph Afghan women, seized the opportunity and captured her image. She was approximately 13 years old at the time.

Although her name was not known, her picture, titled “Afghan Girl”, appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and with her piercing sea-green eyes staring directly into the camera, became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation worldwide. The image itself was named “the most recognized photograph” in the history of the magazine.

World’s Best-looking Prison: Leoben Justice Centre, Steiermark – Austria

Yes, it’s a prison, a five-star prison located in Steiermark, Austria. it was created by hohensinn architektur.
There are two inscriptions on the prison’s perimeter: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” which is taken from The United States Declaration of Independence, and “Each of the persons deprived of their liberty must be humanely and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human being treated.”

World’s Smallest Prison: Sark Prison, Sark – Guernsey

Sark Prison is located on the Island of Sark in Guernsey, was built in 1856 and is apparently the smallest in the world. it can house 2 prisoners at a push and is still used for overnight stays – if you continue to play up after that you’ll get shipped off to a proper grown-up jail with corridors and staff.

World’s Strangest Prison: San Pedro Prison, Bolivia

Convicts at san pedro in Bolivia have to pay rent for a cell and they all have jobs within the prison. A large number have partners and children staying with them and tourists/backpackers are allowed to enter the prison but must be accompanied by a tour guide (a prisoner) for “safety reasons”. Tourists can even stay the night in a cell for a small fee and a large number of them frequent the jail in order to buy cocaine from inmates as it’s apparently the purest and cheapest in Bolivia. It’s also been suggested that local police only enter the facility to collect bribes.

World’s Most Famous Prison: Alcatraz, San Fransisco Bay – California

Alcatraz Island, sometimes informally referred to as simply Alcatraz or locally as the Rock, is a small island located in the middle of San Francisco Bay in California, United States. It served as a lighthouse, then a military fortification, then a military prison followed by a federal prison until 1963. It became a national recreation area in 1972 and received landmarking designations in 1976 and 1986.
Today, the island is a historic site operated by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is open to tours. Visitors can reach the island by ferry ride from Pier 33, near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

World’s Most Overcrowded prison: Kresty Prison, St. Petersburg, Russia

Russias prisons have a reputation for being the most overcrowded on earth, especially kresty prison in st. petersburg.
Official capacity: 3,000
Actual population: always at least 10,000
Number of square metres per prisoner allocated by the russian government: 4
Amount of time permitted for each prisoner’s weekly shower: 15 minutes

World’s Most Valuable Prison: San Quentin State Prison, California

The land underneath 154 year old San Quentin state prison is estimated to be worth $80 to $100 million, instantly making it the most valuable prison in the world. it occupies 275 acres of oceanfront land overlooking the bay, some say the most valuable real estate in the whole country.

World’s Most Secure Prison: ADX Supermax, Florence, Colorado

This is the king of all prisons, and I mean the evil king. to be fair, it’s what a prison should be: harsh. even the name means business, supermax prisons being the securest in the world.
This ‘high-tech alcatraz’ was opened in 1994 and is home to only the most violent and dangerous criminals in the country. those pesky prisoners have absolutely no contact with each other at any time and spend 22 hours per day in solitary confinement (cell size 7ft x 8ft), leaving plenty of time to consider what to have as their last meal. A lot of convicts who enter adx, understandably, lose their mind pretty soon after entering and unless you own a sentence of 25 years or over you aint getting in.

There are hundreds and thousands of brands and labels out there that spoil us for choice when it comes to our image. One thing that’s lacking however in the market for urban/eclectic chic is jewellery. Most of the jewellery found to suit our tastes are from high street clothes shops. Think about Ernest Jones, H Samuel, De Beers, they’re all suited to taste for the more sophisticated and ‘normal’ woman. The only jewellery I seem to find these days that suits my taste is either very old retro/vintage jewellery from market stalls and charity shops, or of course ethnic jewellery which is very hard to get hold of unless you wanna book a flight to a destination in Asia or Morocco.

In the last few years I’ve found myself just settling for the odd treasure I find in high street shops, which requires careful and consistent keeping up with the new stock that comes in. This can be frustrating. As much as I love the odd bargain from Primark’s jewellery section, the bangles especially (I do find the odd gem in there from time to time) there aren’t many brands that produce jewellery I could keep for the rest of my life, as with a cheap price comes cheap quality, most of the jewellery doesn’t last for more than a few years.

If you have a bit of cash you’d like to invest in some real jewellery that will actually last, something with value, that isn’t just of a plain and boring design suited for the norm there are some great designers out there. I found this brand, although pricey, I absolutely love their collection and see their pieces as a good investment. I must give it to them, they source their jewellery very well from tribal groups all over the world including India, China, Africa, Thailand, the Pacific, Afghanistan, Nepal and South America. Think Erykah Badu, artistic, bold, ethnic and funky!

As an artist myself, I’ve always found it a struggle to put onto paper and consistently express what I see in my creative mind onto paper. I’m sure many artists know what I’m talking about. The Artists way links creativity to spirituality by showing how to connect with the creative energies of the universe, and has in the four years since its publication, spawned a remarkable number of support groups for artists dedicated to practising the exercises it contains. With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, the author Julia Cameron works through to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks we may not even be aware of, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity.

“The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist. The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all.”

“Art is an act of the soul, not the intellect. When we are dealing with people’s dreams – their visions, really – we are in the realm of the sacred. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We are engaged in a sacred transaction of which we know only a little: the shadow, not the shape.

In our human lives, we are often impatient, ill-tempered, inappropriate. We find it difficult to treat our intimates with the love we really hold for them. Despite this, they bear with us because of the larger, higher level of family that they honor even in our outbursts. This is their commitment.

As artists, we belong to an ancient and holy tribe. We are the carriers of the truth that spirit moves through us all. When we deal with one another, we are dealing not merely with our own human personalities but also with the unseen but ever-present throng of ideas, visions, stories, poems, songs, sculptures, art-as-facts that crowd the temple of consciousness waiting their turn to be born.” – Julia Cameron

If you’re an artist of any kind, whether it’s what you do for a living or whether it’s what you WANT to do, I suggest you get this book.

The Japanese have done it again. With skin made of flexible silicon and various sensors that react when touched, designers of the new android say that they’ll eventually be used as companions for bed bound and elderly people, as well as receptionists and TV presenters.

Androids have been mainly an element of science fiction, yet it is increasingly becoming a reality in Japan and South Korea. The two countries are in a heated competition to make them a commercial success in the global market and have developed a handful of successful androids so far.

The android weighs 110 pounds (50 kilograms) and would stand 5 feet, 3 inches (160 centimeters) tall. Very impressive, but the lack of emotion in their face (which make them look like they’re on drugs or something) will be the next challenge for designers of the android. I’m sure it wont be long until they fix that. We’re intrigued to know what your thoughts are on the subject…

Looking at the underground music scene in Tehran, ‘No one knows about Persian Cats’ is a stylish tale of struggling musicians, subversive youth, and the constraints of living in a dictatorship. With a limited release hitting cinemas next week, you’re gonna have to hunt for it though.

One by one we’re watching them fall like flies. I guess it all began in the Puff Daddy days, P diddy, Diddy-O, whatever the f*ckers name is these days. As much as I absolutely LOVE Hype Williams, it makes me sad to say that his combo attack with The Daddy of Puff began the death of real Hip Hop. Bright vibrant colours, close-up in ya face shots of cool rappers and hip hop honey hoochie mama butts filmed through fish eye lenses was the essence of cool. Remember those crazy Missy Elliot videos? Hype Williams. Hype being the key word.

Then there was Mobb Deep who (still find it hard to say) signed onto G UNIT (cringe cringe cringe cringe), Nas became Jay Z’s bitch (after ending their ongoing battle, completely destroying him with the song ‘Ether’).

The true principles of Hip Hop are based around creativity, expression, knowledge of self, community, culture, which was born out of positivity within the beautiful struggle. It’s a way of life, a state of mind. It’s a cultural movement, one of which the bboy, graffiti, and turntablism was born.

What it has now become is a T-Pain whiny Akon autotune cocktail nightmare of rappers wearing shades in clubs drinking out of a pimp cup with a loada cheap half naked bints rubbing their diseased loose crotches all over them talkin some absolute fraff that makes me want to give them a backhander.

Hip Hop has become the complete OPPOSITE of what it was all about. I remember seeing Mos Def at the Shepherds Bush empire and the entire crowd was just a chorus crowd. As soon as Ms Fat Booty & Umi Says came on, they’d all tilt their new era caps down and start singing along trying to crip walk or whatever it is they do these days with their latest nike trainers thinking to themselves “Oh I’m so deep, this is underground hip hop, I’m so Urban”. Bitch Please. Mos then went into a freestyle, spitting hard lyrics about new world order (the mans been arrested on stage before because of his strong words about the corruption of the government). THATS hip hop. STAND UUUP! Lyrically handsome, still representing, Brooklyns finest on stage, spitting REAL hip hop in front of their hyped up eyes and noone made a noise. Moral of the story, people don’t even listen to the lyrics anymore.

REAL HIP HOP:

Listen to the lyrics, and if you’re still baffeled I guess you’re just beyond hope and a perfect example of why real music is doomed.

And this is what its become. Makes me queasy.

Aaaaaaaaaand thats enough, I think you catch my point. Once again, big up Mos Def for not having a bar of it and confronting Kanye West, perfect example of the point I’m making.

I shall finish this article with a song which I once blew both my speakers to.

A B-boy or B-girl is a person devoted to hip hop culture, more specifically, bboying/break-dancing. Crazy Legs of Rock Steady Crew explains the origin of the term – “the word b-boy originated from Kool Herc … b-boys and b-girls – break boys, break girls” [1]. Although numerous b-boys have suggested that the term refers to the ‘breaks’ on a record [1], Kool Herc says that this is not the case – “b-boy – boys that break, it didn’t come from breaks on the record, it comes from… this man he ‘broke’, he went to a point, a breaking point… we just used that exaggeration of that term to the dancing – the b-boys, break boys”.

[1] Schloss, Joseph (2009). Foundation: B-boys, B-girls, And Hip-Hop Culture… [Oxford University Press.]

Love him or hate him, Jay Z is using his fame and influence (at last) to actually educate the world about something of great importance and substance. He’s joined forces with Will Smith to help produce a broadway musical, portraying the life of the late Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, political activist and Afrobeat pioneer who died in 1997. He wasn’t afraid to challenge the status quo and call out the corruption he saw in the government.

Music for the production ‘Fela’ has been arranged by the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, who have previously contributed to albums by Foals and TV On The Radio.

Watch this space.