DJ Premier On Why Gang Starr Didn’t Make The Poetic Justice Soundtrack
On DJ Premier’s episode 16 of “So Wassup?“, the legendary dj explained why Gang Starr was not on the Poetic Justice soundtrack.
Gang Starr were no strangers to creating music for various movie soundtracks. They were featured on ‘White Men Can’t Jump’, ‘Trespass’, ‘Mo Better Blues’, and ‘8 Mile.’ “We’ve always written our songs based off what the topic is,” DJ Premier said. Considering that most of the film ‘Poetic Justice’ had the four main characters riding around the country, Gang Starr figured “ALONGWAYTOGO” was the perfect anthem.
Prior to recording the song, Gang Starr who were already friends with Tupac, went together to watch the premiere. “John Singleton personally reached out to us to come to a screening,” DJ Premier recalls. “We were already friends with Tupac, so seeing him and hanging with him all the time was really normal, especially ’93. Tupac came with us to see it. We were in L.A.”
Right after, Gang Starr head back to New York and started the recording process for the ‘Poetic Justice’ soundtrack. As told by DJ Premier, Guru was drunk and did not sound as his fans were accustom to hearing. Regardless of the fact, DJ Premier felt the record was good enough to make the final cut for the soundtrack. “Something about it made me go I like it, don’t change it. It’s something about it that I just want to make it stay the way it is. We left it the way it is,” Premier explained. “It’s one of my favorite songs ever of all time.”
“So I’mma step just to speak about the counterfeit, unlegit type of people
Those cellophane ones, the ones that you can see through
It’s poetic justice ’cause I’m mad with a pact“– Guru, “ALONGWAYTOGO”
Considering Guru was drunk, he was able to complete the song in one take. Still that was not good enough as John Singleton rejected the song. Singleton did not think the record fit the movie. Gang Starr disagreed, but kept it moving. They would end up using the song to kick off their 1994 ‘Hard To Earn‘ album.
