This is how NOT to deny a gay rumor, Solar.

During the time where we all learned about Guru’s heart attack and subsequent passing, I’ve pretty much stayed out of the whole “Fuck Solar” dialog. I didn’t have any particular motive for this, but I suppose I didn’t realize the extent to which Solar was manipulating Guru’s affairs. I’ve also stayed away from speculation that they were lovers, since that’s the kind of dialog the Hip-Hop community at large doesn’t seem mature enough to navigate. Also, it has nothing to do with Guru’s music, most of which I happen to enjoy, and it’s none of my business.

 

Then this deathbed letter happened, supposedly written by Guru, that goes out of its way to cast Solar in a divine light. We all saw right through this, mainly because Guru was in a coma and couldn’t have written such a thing. Guru’s family agrees. The part that stood out for many people was this:

 

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.

 

The entire tone of the letter reeks of a controlling intimate relationship. So MTV decided to get to the bottom of this and Solar’s response was incredibly fucking idiotic and unskillful:

 

“That’s untrue, completely unfounded,” he said. “Guru is a family man, I’m a family man. I don’t want to say anything against anybody living a certain type of lifestyle — everybody is free to live their life how they choose to live it — but that’s not my lifestyle or Guru’s lifestyle. We’re straight men. He dealt with women and family. I dealt with women and family. There’s never been any blurring of the lines whatsoever.”

 

I really didn’t expect this gentleman to possess the mental fortitude to answer a question like this without betraying all types of social logic and potentially eviscerating the English language (he didn’t), but the “I’m a family man” part pretty much suggests that us gays are out in the street fucking, sucking, drinking, drugging and coming up with inventive new venereal diseases that defy modern advances in science and medicine. Sway should’ve responded “Oh you’re a family man? Well, shit then, that settles it! You can’t POSSIBLY be gay. Asshole.” Because, you know, committed relationships and children and other “familial” matters are the exclusive domain and right of grimy Hip-Hop niggas that act like someone’s controlling wife at every possible turn.

 

So, yeah. Fuck Solar.

 

nOvaJavaBlend #25


NOVAJAVABLEND #25 [04.01.10]


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What Dr. Dre would rather we didn’t mention.

Sometimes I’m reminded of things (that were retroactively erased from my memory) by consequence of the dreaded Wikipedia Hole. Like a Youtube Hole, one link leads to another and so on until you realize hours have flown by and your initial query was for Boy Meets World. And so I landed at this Dr. Dre video, obviously.

 

When we think of Dr. Dre, it’s normally within in two specific contexts–The Chronic/Death Row era and the resurgence with Eminem, 50 Cent and his own 2001, but we often overlook what happened in between. Dr. Dre Presents The Aftermath was an oddity not unlike Blood On The Dancefloor in its ill-timed release and sound that unsuccessfully rode nostalgia and a stab at relevance. It’s never regarded as part of the official cannon (not to mention his work on The Firm album). It yielded two singles, though, the Group Therapy track that proposed to rather obnoxiously absorb or undo the East/West beef  back then and “Been There Done That”, where Dre “grows up” and brands the gangsta pose passé with a carefully choreographed tango number. Here’s why it didn’t work.

 

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