Gang Starr - Above the Clouds

"Wild like rock stars who smash guitars."

Album: Moment of Truth [5th album]
Recorded: New, York City
Genre: Hip Hop, East Coast Hip Hop
Album Release: March 31st 1998
Length: 3.41
Producer: DJ Premier [age 32]
Vocalist: Guru [age 36], Inspectah Deck
Label: Virgin Records

Audio

Charts, Streams & Sales

Canada (albums): 14
USA (albums): #6
USA (albums): Certified gold on May 7th 1998
Spotify: 78,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 40,000,000 +

Credits

Sample: John Dankworth and His Orchestra - Two Piece Flower

Drums: George Clinton - All Night. DJ Premier had previously used the same drums on 'Represent' by Nas and on 'The Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers' by The Crooklyn Dodgers.

Intro: Taken from a speech by John F Kennedy in 1963 "The moon and the planets are there and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there" (talking about taking the first few tentative steps into space)

Intro: Taken from a 1982 audio rendition of 'Superman - The Man from Krypton' "that a mysterious force is loose somewhere in outer space"

Details

• Guru and Inspectah Deck wrote their verses in the studio.
  
• Guru was heavily influenced by the Five Percent Nation, an organisation of black muslims who believe that the black man is in fact God. Guru is an acronym for 'Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal' which alludes to the Five Percent Nations 'God Universal Ruler Universal'.
  
  The link to the Five Percenters continues into Guru's verse which starts with "I Self Lord And Master." The first letter of each word spells I-S-L-A-M. Other references to Islam can be found in the verse such as "triple darkness" and "the ten percenters promoting slander in the airtime."
  
  The triple darkness is the nothingness where people come from when they're born. The Five Percent Nation believe that 85% of the worlds population are kept in ignorance by 10% and that 5%, the Five Percenters, know the truth and seek to enlighten the 85% by working against the interests of the 10%.
  
  It's interesting to me that a track, which is seemingly about space travel, and features a quote from the space race, has such religious content in its lyrics. Especially as the space race was a time when science was becoming dominant over religion. The limitations of natural forces, such as gravity, were defeated by technological advancement and the imagery of rockets penetrating the heavens made anything seem possible.
  
  But for Guru, above the clouds was still a place for the divine. As it was for Wu Tang's Inspectah Deck, it's just that Deck saw himself not as a devout follower instead of one of the Gods himself. Thanks to technology the human being could now equate himself himself with God. 
  
  

Lyrics