Both with Preemo and with his own Jazzmatazz series of albums, Guru’s reverence for the bridge between Jazz and Hip-Hop shined a new light on the musicality of Hip-Hop. 

For Termanology, who recently dropped his collaborative album with Paul Wall titled Start 2 Finish, Guru was more than just an artist, he was a mentor that ultimately helped push the then teenaged MC to take his game to the next level. Term did eventually get put on, and would wind up putting out several collaborations with DJ Premier. As it turns out, he also did a song with Guru, but that one never came out. 

“I was doing my thing since high school, running behind [Krumbsnatcha] who was running with Gang Starr, so he was my initial plug to how I got cool with Guru, and I did a song with Guru in 2004,” Term revealed to Rock The Bells in an exclusive conversation with him and Paul Wall. After that studio closed down, and I never got the copy so there’s an unreleased song with me and Guru out there, actually it’s me, Guru and Krumbsnatcha,” he added. 

Term’s friendship with fellow MC, Krumbsnatcha helped get his foot in the door and as it turns out, would lead to a car ride that would instill the confidence in Termanology to push through. 

"He picked me up in his Cadillac and drove me around when I was a kid. I was fresh out of high school and I played him my demo and he was like ‘Yo bro, you gonna get signed,’ said Term. “He was like, ‘You’re Puerto Rican right?’ I was like ‘Yeah.’ He was like, ‘Yo, Fat Joe gonna sign you. I know it, just keep grinding.'  

He believed in me and Krumbsnatcha did as well, which is kinda what led me to [DJ Premier], and then Statik became a good friend of Premier and now I got multiple records with Premier.” 

As for how he connected with Krumbsnatcha, that was the result of pure determination and a little bit of stalking. 

“Krumsnatcha was signed to Guru, and what happened was Krumb was from my hood Lawrence, MS, so when I was in 8th or 9th grade I used to make demo tapes, and me and my homies, we would just wait outside the barbershop we heard he’d be at. We’d just go post up there for days waiting for him to give him our tape,” remembered Term. “When I started making noise in my hood, he found out about me and one of my mans brought me to him and was like, ‘this is my mans, he’s about to rap for you, and you’re gonna wanna sign him.’ He’s looking at us like ‘Yeah, right.’”

Term continued: 

“So I ended up rapping for him, I spit like 100 bars and he was like, ‘that’s it, I’m signing you on the spot.’ I’m a teenager, he’s doing songs with Pete Rock, he’s on the Gang Starr album, ‘Same Team No Games.’ So he had brought me to multiple sessions to meet Guru to meet Pete Rock, to meet Premier. We’re taking trains, busses, getting rides back and forth, and I was still in high school.”

As for what ever happened to that collaboration with Guru, Term is still on the hunt, and from what he heard it might be in the hands of another seminal figure in the Hip-Hop/Jazz world. 

“Somebody got it. Please give it to me I will PayPal you, Cashapp, whatever. I heard one of the Digable Planets owned that [studio], so if anybody got that let me know—cause I need that.”