I’m not sure which bothers me more. The fact that Heavy D died, or the fact that the last time I saw him perform, at the BET rap awards, the young kids did not seem to receive him. Certainly, hip-hop has changed tremendously since he was popular. I guess none of that matters now. I logged onto my Facebook account, and they were already talking about it.
He was only 44 years of age.
It would not have been so bittersweet if I had not seen him perform that night. He reminded me of a time when hip-hop was sexy, but not vulgar, mature, but not taking itself too seriously. Heavy D represented that fun aspect of hip-hop, from the time we first saw him to the late nineties.
He even worked on Michael Jackson’s song “Jam”, when Michael himself was in his prime and facing declining sales and popularity. He had three platinum albums, when it was a big to go platinum, not because of declining sales in the music industry, post 2000, but because rap was still new and undiscovered by mainstream America. Back then going platinum was like selling 20 million for a rap artist.
He even got to work with Janet Jackson and Notorious BIG. It is easy to forget just how popular Heavy D was at one time.
His death reminds of what happened to Darren Robinson, of The Fat Boys. While that was six years ago it seems like yesterday. Heavy D had trouble breathing, and collapsed. Darren Robinson fell off of a chair, lost his wind, and died later at 3 am; this all happened after performing a song.
He was working on a reunion album.
We have a lot of problems with obesity in our community. I could stand to lose 50 pounds myself. These deaths remind us of how precious life is, and how it can be taken away from us at any time.