‘My brother decided to trust him with his life, and we see where that ended up,’ Patricia Elam tells MTV News. By Shaheem Reid Gang Starr’s Guru and DJ Premier in 1994 Photo: Chi Modu/ diverseimages/ Getty Images Patricia Elam , older sister of late Gang Starr MC Keith “Guru” Elam , said she always thought her brother’s friend Solar was suspect. She said she never trusted him and, therefore, was never on good terms with the producer. “When [Guru] started working with Solar, even up until the time he was in the hospital and we learned Solar was the health care proxy, my father and my [older] brother were still sort of like, ‘This is what your brother wanted. We’re kinda gonna go along with it,’ ” Patricia recalled. “They were pretty trusting of Solar. [Solar] was feeding them the information he wanted them to have. I was always hesitant and a little more cynical. I never had the right feeling about him. I think he knew that.” Solar has said in the past that if there was any rift between himself and the Elam family , it was with Patricia and her son Justin, because they went public with the news that Guru was ill. Solar said that Guru and Patricia had been estranged for years. “When you ask me why he blames me, he’s a perceptive guy, and he knows if someone is with him or not,” Patricia explained. “I never was with [Solar] for various reason over the years. But now that my father and brother both see where this had gone, they are like, ‘You were right.’ They can’t get over it that someone would even behave in this manner. It’s been a learning experience.” Patricia admitted that Solar had a heavy influence over her brother, and she’s perplexed over their relationship to this day. “I don’t know what the influence was,” she said. “I don’t know if it was drugs, brainwashing, whatever. I don’t know if it was blackmail. For whatever reason, my brother decided to trust him with his life, and we see where that ended up. It’s an American tragedy, as far as I’m concerned.” Patricia revealed that the last time she talked to her brother was at the beginning of the year about three weeks before he went into the hospital for his terminal myeloma, and they talked about their family. The last time she saw him alive was mid-February, when he was in the hospital in a coma. She said when Guru was initially admitted, Solar told the family to not come and that the MC didn’t want anybody to see him in his weakened condition. But when he slipped into a coma, they all went. “When I went in there, I was so shocked at what he looked like,” she said, when asked if she saw any signs of neglect. “I didn’t pay attention to a bunch of fine details. I did notice his hair. He always shaved his head. It was odd to see [hair] grown around the edges. I didn’t get the feeling of he wasn’t being taken care of. I didn’t look at his nails, that kind of thing. I looked at how frail he was, how skeleton-like his head looked, how swollen his hands and feet were. I was shocked at his overall appearance.” Guru died April 19, succumbing to cancer. He has since been cremated, and a private memorial for the family is being planned with possibly a larger ceremony for his fans this summer on Guru’s birthday, July 17. Another point of contention for Patricia is the farewell letter Solar released , which he said Guru wrote. Patricia thinks the letter is a fake. “Oh, God, my brother never regained consciousness,” Patricia said. “Understand this: He never regained consciousness from the time he went into a coma in freaking mid-February until he died. You tell me how someone writes a letter in that state. He tells my son when he got there, ‘He’s gonna look like he was in a coma.’ No, he was in a coma. When [Guru] went into the hospital, he wasn’t thinking he was gonna die; he was thinking he would get better. But if he did think he was gonna die, and he was on his deathbed because his son was so important to him, he would have been writing a letter to his son. He wouldn’t have wrote a letter about ‘Oh, my freaking career and this that and the other, and this person is in charge of my life.’ No. That letter was so self-serving. I’m happy to see that most people say when they read it, ‘It doesn’t even sound like him.’ That’s not how my brother wrote. That’s not how my brother talked. “If he was writing a letter on his deathbed, it would have been to his son, [to] my father, that kind of thing,” she added. “Or it would have been about wishes he has for his son, [how] he hopes he left a positive legacy. That’s the kind of thing he would have written.” Share your memories of Guru and Gang Starr in the comments below. Related Videos Gang Starr’s Guru: Music Videos MTV News Extended Play: Solar Gang Starr’s Guru Passes Away Related Photos Gang Starr’s Guru: A Life In Photos Related Artists Guru Gang Starr
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Guru’s Sister ‘Never Had The Right Feeling’ About Solar
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