“I really felt that the bling era interrupted something that could have kept going and probably become very great,” says the beatsmith. Guru attributes the lack of originality on the insistence of record labels of duplicating popular trends; “They look at it like, if that was successful and they go with another thing like it, they’d rather go with that. There’s more of a chance for that to be successful too as opposed to something original and cultivating from the roots.”

To read the article in its entirety, pick up the Summer 2008 issue of Beyond Race Magazine.