The initial Gang Starr production duties were a team effort up through Daily Operation.

Premier didn't start becoming the go-to outside producer/DJ extraordinaire until probably around the time of KRS Return of the Boom-Bap in '93 going into '94.

Guru around that same time was the more visible member with the trademark voice, Premier likely started doing more outside work because he had more time basically living at D&D as Guru was taking that Mo Better Blues 'Jazz Thing' concept to the hilt with actual live instrumentation on the first Jazzmatazz album, touring/doing press for that record, being featured on the Brand New Heavies/Neneh Cherry/Dream Warriors/Buhloone Mindstate/Ronny Jordan and other jazz-rap-fusion-related stuff.

Thing is while that stuff was getting a lot of critical praise in that era with write-ups in every music magazine from Downbeat to Spin, like most any other jazz-related records over the past couple decades, it didn't really sell all that well.

Meanwhile Premier (who was also still in the 'jazz-rap' vein a bit in terms of the samples while working with Branford & Dream Warriors but not as overtly) was doing the Jeru album, plus had credits on Ready to Die & Illmatic with his hand in at least one classic record of the era on each.

That same year the belated Hard To Earn dropped, amazingly including the Premier-scratched banger 'Dwyck' which had already had a video plus been the b-side on the 'Take It Personal' cassette-single and presumably 12" for nearly two years by that point.

This was the first album where Premier is credited as the producer rather than co-producer and the album's sound was a bit grittier and more 'hip-hop' than Step In The Arena or Daily Operation.

It's also the first album in their catalog to feature DJ Premier, rather than Guru, in the foreground of the cover photo.

Whether that was an accidental or intentional photographic summation of the shift that had occurred by mid-'94, Premier's trademark musical sound-bed would become the de-facto 'New York Rap'/true-school sound signifier for what seemed like the whole second half of the 90's into early 2000/01.

It was at that point the tables had kinda turned in terms of power, Premier's profile loomed large during the long absence of a Gang Starr record for the next four years as Guru went further down the rabbit-hole of the jazz stuff before wandering in the creative wilderness waiting for his partner to get back in the increasingly longer gaps between group efforts.

Subsequent generations who weren't around or were too young to remember the early 90's now want to now paint it as Guru being carried by Premier or say dumb shit like 'Premier & Jeru were a better duo' while acting like the man with the classic voice + gifts for songwriting beyond a scratched-vocal sample chorus was some kind of Malachi The Nutcracker-style scrub.

Guru's musical regression on the Baldhead Slick album, bizarre relationship with Solar, legal/substance issues, illness and muted/mysterious death didn't help to quell that misguided talk and perception.

But make no mistake that man is a legend and a great MC despite not having earned some imaginary stripes bestowed upon him by the Fat Beats Geeks or their Internet-Rap-Olympic-Nerd offspring thru spitting a multitude of multis & verbal gymnastics

Guru was more concerned with content, clarity, song-craft, storytelling all delivered thru his inimitable vocal filter.

Give the credit y'all......where it is due.