How did Big L die?

(Credit score: Spotify)

Big L‘s life was cut short at 24 when he still had so much talent to give to the world. The Harlem rapper, renowned for his freestyling ability, only released one album during his lifetime. Still, it was enough for people to consider him one of the best lyricists of all time.

Born on May 30th, 1974 as Lamont Coleman, L grew up in Harlem, New York City and was the youngest of three siblings. His stage name comes from something people would call him as a child, deriving from the first letter of his name. L’s curiosity in rapping started when he was seven after his older brother, Donald, took him to a Run-DMC live performance on the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan.

L began freestyling with others in his neighbourhood when he was 12 and wrote his first bars in 1990. He attended Julia Richman Excessive Faculty, the place he often had rap battles, and graduated in 1992. “In the beginning, all I ever saw me doing was battling everybody on the street corners, rhyming in the hallways, beating on the wall, rhyming to my friends,” he admitted throughout his last interview. “Every now and then, a house party, grab the mic, a block party, grab the mic.”

He dropped his debut album Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous in 1995, which was produced by Buckwild, Lord Finesse, Showbiz and Craig Boogie. Launched on Columbia Data, the title was impressed by the tv present Life of the Wealthy and Well-known, and featured the singles ‘Put It On’ and ‘MVP’.

Many posthumous albums have been launched since his loss of life, together with 139 & Lenox, Return of the Satan’s Son and The Hazard Zone, however The Big Image is by far essentially the most outstanding. The album was set to be launched in 1999 earlier than his loss of life, however ended up dropping in 2000. Launched on Rawkus Data, the album wasn’t completed when he handed away, so his supervisor, Wealthy King, set to work finishing it. Rappers reminiscent of 2Pac, Fats Joe, Big Daddy Kane, Guru, Remy Ma and Kool G Rap all appeared on the challenge.

Nas was once so impressed with L that he instructed Funkmaster Flex that he “scared me to death. When I heard [his performance at the Apollo Theater] on tape, I was scared to death. I said, ‘Yo, it’s no way I can compete if this is what I gotta compete with.’” Excessive reward from a fellow New York Metropolis MC and the most effective to ever do it.

So, how did Big L die?

L was shot and killed in a drive-by capturing at 45 West 139th Road in his hometown of Harlem on February fifteenth 1999, the place he was struck 9 instances within the face and chest. One among his childhood mates, Gerard Woodley, was arrested for his loss of life months later, however he was launched resulting from lack of proof. “It’s a good possibility it was retaliation for something Big L’s brother did, or Woodley believed he had done,” stated a spokesperson for the New York Metropolis Police Division. The case continues to be unresolved to today.

L is buried at George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, New Jersey. A number of years in the past, the one hundred and fortieth Road and Lennox Avenue intersection in Harlem was co-named Lamont ‘Big L’ Coleman Manner.

He predicted his death within the tune ‘Casualties of a Dice Game’, through which he raps, “I watched all of them, run for they share/ And all I can do was stare/ I got weak and fell on my rear/ Now I can hear the sirens, that means here comes the Jakes/ But it’s too late, I’m knockin’ on the pearly gates.”

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