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"Thirty-seven Years Young"
I have lived long enough to know that death comes when it comes, that there may not be an answer or reason or even consolation. Death is a void we must all face. I pray his survivors find comfort in a time of shock and devastating loss.
It's early in the morning and I don't really know how to talk about this. Should I talk about being in a little hotel in a little town in Louisiana? It was 1987, and my mother's family was amassing for our first real family reunion. A few of my cousins were staying at the Clifford Motel in "downtown" Angie, Louisiana. Among other things (lying about girls, mostly...), we bobbed our heads to the sounds pumping out of the boombox. LL Cool J was talkin' 'bout "Candy" and how "bad" he was. But he wasn't as bad as Run DMC. They almost single-handedly pulled hip-hop from the block parties to the top 10. And who was that on the 1's and 2's? Jam Master Jay. Adidas'ed down, fat chain swingin', Jay put the needle on the record for the Kings of Rock.
He always looked like he was having so much fun back there, hypin the crowd; a one-man band. I can close my eyes and still see his head bobbing to the beat, his smile channeling joy from a bygone era. Jam Master Jay was lucky, perhaps, to be in the right place at the right time, to be a part of hip hop's ascendancy. And some of us were lucky enough to be there with him.
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