One thing surrounding the controversial, untimely, and tragic death of Guru is the fate of his yet-to-be released recordings. We all know that Guru has been recording exclusively on 7*Grand Recordings over the last few years with Solar. What this means, sadly, is that the recordings under the label that remain unfinished or in the vaults are probably owned partly by Solar and partly by the estate of Guru, whomever that includes.

We all see the forest for the trees with the current situation, hell, we’ve been seeing it for months. A guy that refers to himself as “super-producer” has been positioning himself to gain as much publicity as possible, in order to use this event to propel himself to larger heights. Yes, you better believe the final album from Guru will be released on 7*Grand Records, and will be produced entirely by Solar.

But perhaps not. Given the state of the music industry, this album will probably be released independently and sell 30K tops – hardly enough to allow Solar engage in shameless gluttony over the next ten years. Realistically, it will probably make about, well, seven grand. While we, the fans, all love Guru, let’s face it, he was not 2Pac, and at this point there is no chance of him becoming the next pop rap artist played 40 times a day on the radio, in every market. And let’s face facts – Solar is the most hated man in the industry right now, taking the torch from Benzino and Suge Knight before him. Nobody wants to hear Guru over Solar’s beats. Period.

There is a possible, wild scenario that could occur, and make everyone happy, even Solar. Just imagine if someone came along – like Jay-Z, or even better, let’s say Diddy – and purchased the rights to the 7*Grand catalog. Sounds crazy, but hear this out. Diddy’s reasoning for doing this would not be to make a bunch of money off of it; he has money, tons of it. Diddy would do it to buy the credibility in the eyes of the public for the sake of the music, much like he did when he threw the release party for Raekwon’s Only Built For Cuban Links 2 or when he hires good rappers to ghostwrite for him.

So in this imaginary scenario, Diddy pays a nice sum of go-away-money to Solar, and to the estate of Guru, for complete control of the masters – including the acapellas – never to be touched by Solar again. From there, Diddy delivers the acapellas to Premier, who finishes those last three Gang Starr albums Guru mentioned in our 2003 interview. They release it for the fans, no attempts at crossing over, no attempts at getting radio play – perhaps even in fancy, deluxe packaging. It’s feasible, as Diddy has employed Premier on several Bad Boy releases.

Sadly, we can assume nothing like this will ever happen. Not because Diddy would never go for it – we think he actually would – the problem is instead Solar. Here is a man that has to control the situation 100% of the time, as evidenced over the last few weeks; a man whose master plan was to make sure that the fate of Guru’s legacy lies in his hands, for him to destroy exclusively; a man who has bragged that he’s been all over the world, performing with Guru, not realizing the crowd was only there to hear Gang Starr songs. His ego is massive, and unfortunately would never let this happen.

Still it’s nice to dream. Rest in peace, Guru.

Eat a dick, Solar.