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Version 4 Version 5
Remembering the Rappers We Lost Remembering the Rappers We Lost
(about 8 hours later)
Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? — Luke 14:28Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? — Luke 14:28
It’s time to count up the cost.It’s time to count up the cost.
So I made a spreadsheet of people in hip-hop who died before their time. Almost all of them are Black men. With hesitation, I stopped at 63.So I made a spreadsheet of people in hip-hop who died before their time. Almost all of them are Black men. With hesitation, I stopped at 63.
Stare at the spreadsheet long enough, and names push limblike through Excel’s cells. The stacks of narrow boxes are like coffins in a queue. No list could include all who are gone. Already I’m guilty about the absence of neighborhood superstars and the critically unacclaimed. I also have not listed the men in rap who walk among us but who are dead inside.Stare at the spreadsheet long enough, and names push limblike through Excel’s cells. The stacks of narrow boxes are like coffins in a queue. No list could include all who are gone. Already I’m guilty about the absence of neighborhood superstars and the critically unacclaimed. I also have not listed the men in rap who walk among us but who are dead inside.
Chronologically, this grim data set begins with Scott Sterling of the Bronx, better known as DJ Scott La Rock, who was shot to death in 1987 at age 25, and stops with De La Soul’s David Jolicoeur of Brooklyn, a.k.a. Trugoy the Dove, who died in February of heart failure at 54. Near the midpoint is Lord Infamous — Ricky Dunigan — who in 2013 had a heart attack in his sleep. His half brother and fellow Three 6 Mafia founder, DJ Paul, born Paul Beauregard, painted a desolate picture. “He laid his head in his arms at the kitchen table,” Beauregard told the website Hip Hop DX the day after Dunigan died. “When his momma came home, he was sitting at the kitchen table, passed away.”