Track Listing

1. Name Tag (Premier And The Guru)
2. Step In The Arena
3. Form Of Intellect
4. Execution Of A Chump No More Mr Nice Guy
5. Who's Gonna Take The Weight
6. Beyond Comprehension
7. Check The Technique
8. Lovesick
9. Here Today Gone Tomorrow
10. Game Plan
11. Take A Rest
12. What You Want This Time
13. Street Ministry
14. Just To Get A Rep
15. Say Your Prayers
16. As I Read My S A
17. Precisely The Right Rhymes
18. Meaning Of The Name

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30338 in Music
• Released on: 1991-01-14
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Unlike many of their contemporaries, Gang Starr have been topping the hip-hop charts for over 10 years. Their output is consistently top drawer but it was with Step in the Arena , their second album, that they really made their name. Like NWA's Straight Outta Compton or Public Enemy's seminal It Takes a Nation..., Step In the Arena set the benchmark for all that would follow. From the stripped-down title track to the funky "Just to Get a Rep", Premier's superlative production sets both feet tapping while Guru's mellifluous lyrics make your head bob gently along. Put simply: this is a stone-cold hip-hop classic that no enthusiast can afford to be without. -- Duncan Thomson

CD Description
Reflecting the combination of inner-city upbringing and college education which both members share, Gang Starr manages to attain the perfect balance of intellect and street credibility; harder than so-called hard-core, more experimental than "experimental hip-hop" and funkier than 99.9 percent of mainstream rap's party jam output. In a culture based on battles and an industry known for feuds and ego-clashes, Gang Starr is perhaps the only outfit to command respect from everycorner of the hip-hop spectrum. Individually or as a unit, Guru & Premier have collaborated with "alternative" hip-hop crews (De La Soul, Digable Planets, Dream Warriors), jazz artists (Donald Byrd, Branford Marsalis) R&B stars (Janet Jackson, K-Ci & Jo-Jo) and hard-core MC's (KRS ONE, M.O.P., Notorious B.I.G) without ever compromising their cult status in the underground.
Their second album STEP IN THE ARENA is the release that truly put the duo on map after "Manifest" and "Jazz Thing" first garnered public attention. In additionto pioneering the incorporation of jazz samples into the hip-hop canon of funk & soul drum breaks, this record witnessed DJ Premier single-handedly lifting the orchestration of turntable cuts to the level of a jazz soloist improvising on another musician's phrase.

Customer Reviews

5 stars and then some.......
I can imagine in years to come, when I'm an old and grey, receiving my cyber pension and taking my replicant 'Jack Russell' for a walk through virual reality, I'll 'still' be listening to this memorable and brilliant album.

I'm not the first to describe this album as a 'classic' or the work of 'genius', however, this album is as valuable to me as an orginal John Coltrane recording is to a Jazz fan. When my grand-kids pick this album out of my dusty record collection to laugh at early 1990's fashion, I'll bark and growl at them like an old dog guarding his favourite cushion. Then I'll smile in reflection at an album which was inspiring, moving, sad, happy, couragous and daring in its conception.

DJ Premier's ear for sample breaks is quitely simply stunning, his beat production and scratching is sublime, world class for its time. Guru's rhyming is uniquely magnificent, subsequently "I was raised like a muslim, praying to the east" will remain an immortal opening line of the track 'Whose gonna take the weight'. Guru was one of the first intellectual Emcees to have any influence within a hip hop world dominated by Chuck D's hectoring and NWA's gangster nonsense.As a consequence of this album, Guru and Premier's place within the Hip Hop hall of fame is 100% assured.

Casually and irresponsibly ignored by the people who voted for the 'Greatest 100 albums of all time', this album truly represents one of the very finest moments in Hip Hop history.

one of THE best hip-hop albums ever
This record is quite simply genius. It will transform your opinions of the genre and make a lot of what you will have heard before seem very empty and under produced. Almost every track is a gem with catchy beats and brilliant lyrical freestyling. A must for any b-boy or girl

hard and smooth hip hop
An extraordinary album combining Guru's lyrical dexterity and arrogant mastery with DJ Premier's rolling samples. As an introduction to all that is good about Gang Starr, this is the album to buy, even before taking home their recent retrospective "Full-Clip". It contains a stunning variety of tracks, more wide-ranging and complex than the albums that follow it, with Guru proclaiming slickly on everything from lovesickness to poetic rapping, via the usual insights on gangsta lifestyle, swagger and reputation. "Check the Technique" and "As I read my SA" shine out as examples of fluid, intelligent rap backed up by addictive baselines.