Jon “Gash” Sanders: Gone too soon. NEUMOS
I don’t know what it is about our relationship to death—I mean, I do—but RIP dedications are as hiphop as superstars and gold chains. Ice Cube’s “Dead Homiez,” pouring some out, shout-outs, murals, moments of silence. What other musical subculture has such a connection to those who’ve passed away? (I mean, besides rock’s crass brand of embalming and canonization.)
I think a lot about a minute-and-a-half track on Jake One’s White Van Music, the one titled “RIP,” one of the most comprehensive such dedications. On it, over the horns and strings of Willie Hutch’s “I Choose You,” the unmistakable voice of Seattle’s hiphop alpha Vitamin D lists off a litany of the culture’s missed…