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Gang Starr MC’s collaborator says he helped his friend ‘preserve his dignity’ during his last days. By Shaheem Reid Solar Photo: MTV News As questions about the sincerity of his relationship with Guru continue to circulate throughout the hip-hop community and on the Internet, the Gang Starr MC’s longtime collaborator Solar has opened up about the bond between the two men. “The friendship got close fairly rapidly,” Solar told MTV’s Sway of their meeting in 2002 through a mutual friend. When the trailblazing legend fell ill in early 2009, it was Solar who was appointed medical proxy. Guru died Monday at age 43, after succumbing to a cancer-related illness. Solar said Guru’s health started to drastically deteriorate beginning last summer. In May 2009, the rapper was diagnosed with a myeloma (a tumor), and by that July, he had undergone an unsuccessful operation to stop its spread from his back to other parts of his body. “There were times where I’d help him out,” Solar said. “Get his bathing together, get his self together. Help him with his clothes. Help him out with his food. I would help him get in and out [of the bathtub]. With the myeloma, it’s very delicate. So I would help him get in and out, make sure he could stabilize himself so he could do what he had to do. It’s one of the hardest things I had to do. But I loved him as a brother, and I believe he would have done the same for me. I did that to preserve his dignity, that’s what it was even in those times. “It was getting bad,” Solar said of the months that followed the failed surgery. “His mobility was starting to worsen. I was staying in his home with him to help him with his day-to-day. … We did have people from outside come in as well to help out. Doctors and specialists that were treating him recommended he admit himself [to] the hospital for treatment. … He checked himself in the hospital … signed the appropriate documents that we would be his health proxy. He proceeded to undergo treatment, got to the point of chemotherapy. He was responding. At that point, we didn’t think he wouldn’t come out. We thought he would come back out the hospital and be actually able to get back to some independent life again. The doctors were fairly optimistic that the chemo would work and some other drugs they were giving would work. That’s when the unfortunate event of the cardiac arrest happened. The lungs couldn’t take it.” Guru agreed to go to the hospital last February and, tragically, never came out. In the days since his death, many journalists, fans, MCs and even family members have questioned the sincerity of Guru’s relationship with Solar . However, Solar has maintained that he always has done what was in Guru’s best interest. Share your memories of Guru and Gang Starr in the comments below. Related Videos Gang Starr’s Guru Passes Away MTV News Extended Play: Solar Related Photos Gang Starr’s Guru: A Life In Photos Related Artists Gang Starr Guru

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Solar Details Guru’s Health Decline