This Saturday was a little rough for me. I woke up just feeling pressured and uneasy, something I tried to solve through multiple walks around my neighborhood and the lake, the purchasing of The Show MLB 10 (the first videogame I bought in about a year), some refreshments, and just allowing myself to be lazy after a long week of doing stuff. I sat on my couch, watched Saturday Night Live, and refreshed my Twitter page every 10-15 minutes. My Twitter refreshing got quicker when I started to see posts containing images of emails that were allegedly sent by Guru’s partner at Seven Grand Records, The Super Producer Solar. The emails, which were seen as Twit pics were to various PR and news people, including Kai of Yo Raps, who was going back and forth with Solar about a page dedicated to what was happening to his ailing friend and business partner, the legendary emcee Guru. Another posted email was to a PR company, who was apparently consulting Solar about his new found “fame”, which he seemed to be thrilled about. I caught about 5 of these posts, each time thinking to myself, ‘damn. Ain’t that a b**ch.’ It also made me acutely aware about how anything we say online might as well be said with a bullhorn on Michigan Avenue. My brother, who is a lawyer, told me a long time ago to never say anything in an email that you wouldn’t want published in the New York Times. Well, another fine NYC publication, The Village Voice, ran a very interesting piece today about Solar and those damn emails that have made this guy go from looking shady, to perhaps the most hated man in Hip Hop. Move over Suge Knight, Vanilla Ice, Jerry Heller, and anyone else you thought was just a money hungry leacher off the culture. Solar not only sold out the music, but from these emails, he must’ve sold out his soul. As the Eeels say, “don’t take any wooden nickels, when you sell your soul.’ I hope the devil kept the receipt. Check out the article below.
From The Village Voice:
In the wake of one-time Gang Starr rapper Guru’s death at the young age of 47, his latter day producer and partner Solar emerged as hip-hop’s most loathed villain, accused of everything from denying Guru’s family access to their dying kin to fabricating a deathbed statement from the rapper to starting a bogus charity in Guru’s name. This weekend, someone hacked into Solar’s AOL email account and posted a selection of messages via his also-hacked Twitter account. The anonymous hacker made public emails sent between Solar and various parties, including documents that seem to indicate that Solar is more evil than anyone could have even guessed. The emails appear to show that Solar forced Guru to tour instead of seeking medical help; that he controlled Guru’s access to his own email account and various other web presences; that Solar owed money to multiple parties; and, perhaps most chillingly, that Solar attempted to pimp out unreleased music from Guru after the rapper’s death.
SOTC contacted some of the parties named in the messages, and the emails appear to be authentic. Jake Paine, editor-in-chief of the website www.hiphopdx.com, confirmed that an email addressed to him from Solar’s PR agency, YO! Promotions, was legitimate. A contact at a Japanese company Solar suggested might be interested in some previously unreleased music also confirmed that the email involving him was accurate. Additionally, the email accredited to Guru in the leaked correspondence (guruler7@aol.com) checks out as the same email he was using back in 2008 to warn journalists ahead of interviews that “all interviews have to involve both myself and Solar as we are a label, a company and a new force in hip-hop.” Whoever is behind the hacked email account has promised that more messages will be leaked over the coming days. Until then, here are the ten most appalling revelations from what’s turning into 2010’s biggest hip-hop soap opera.
read the rest here.