So I just found out that Ol’ Dirty Bastard died this weekend. 35 years old. Would have been 36 (a number of significance among the Wu brethren) today. Terrible news. As many of you know, I truly enjoyed his style and his music. There was a time when his first album was my favorite solo Wu album; I found it much more original and engaging than Method Man’s Tical, and I liked it even more than Raekwon’s first solo effort - a contention which was considered by some to be inexplicable and by others insane. But I stuck to my guns on that one – Rae’s album had some true bangers, but it was full of stupid skits and an unrelenting bravado that gave little hint that the man behind the record shared the insults and disappointments of life that, say, “Can it Be All So Simple” revealed. While ODB’s music also did not reveal this dimension of humanity, his steadfast resolve to do what he wanted to do, and his conviction that he was a great MC no matter what anyone said about his skills, made him more human than other Wu rappers and therefore more pleasurable and accessible. His skits (in addition to being more sparse) made you laugh and somehow identify with him – quite an achievement for a thug from Medina rapping to a white boy from Swarthmore.

And his songs were diverse in tone and tempo and texture, bumping and shoving and weaving and sometimes recklessly charging ahead toward an uncertain, unknown future. Such was his life as well, I suppose. Yelling one moment and softly singing the next, he never let on what the next track would bring, and this approach gave his albums something of a lasting originality. It was hard to play one of his records to death; his work defied boredom in a way that few artists achieve, and while ODB was certainly a particular and acquired taste, I liked his music immensely. And he was real in a way that few rappers suggest, or want you to think – he was himself; despite all the different names, the central identity never changed, and he was more real than so many of these bling-having idiots we have to suffer as a result of the explosion of popularity that hip-hop music has enjoyed of late.

While many bounced their heads to “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” and “Brooklyn Zoo”, I was more impressed with tracks like the heavily bass-toned “Hippa to the Hoppa”, “Rawhide” and the frenetic, unrelenting “Protect Ya Neck II – The Zoo”, a true banger with his Brooklyn Zoo posse. His second album, Nigga Please, was certainly no masterpiece, but it held its own for the first several tracks and, at least on some songs, he stayed true to his promise that he would be singing on his second album. Love it. I’m not sure whether the singing was the result of courage or simply not giving a fuck – probably the latter – but you had to love it and admire it. “Got Your Money”, the album’s single, was a tight, hip cut with a skip-along hook and a fantastic Kelis chorus that caused both men and women all over the country to sing, “Hey Dirty, baby I got your money, don’t you worry”, which really made me laugh a lot. All these people telling Dirty they got his money. The inveterate jokester had pulled a little joke on us. The album at one point was going to be titled God Made Dirt and Dirt Don’t Hurt, which makes a line in the single, his alteration of that title (“God made Dirt and Dirt bust ya ass!”), something of an inside joke, and a cackleable one at that. Dirt bust ya ass, indeed.

His many names were one of the funniest and most endearing qualities, and they seemingly changed with the weather. He was Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Dirty, ODB, Osiris, Dirt McGirt, Big Baby Jesus (a moniker of which his deeply religious mother was not particularly fond)...his Five Percent name was Unique, and his real name was Russell Jones. If he had taken the route of so many other rappers these days and just gone by his given name, that one would have been pretty cool too. On the first Wu-Tang album, Method Man explains in a radio interview that ODB is so named because there’s no father to his style; how true that was, and is. Now it is his many children who have no father, and while whether or not he was truly a father to his children is unknown to me, their loss saddens me nonetheless. Based on what I know of him and what I have read of him, he could have a fierce temper, did not suffer whitefolks easily, and frequently fell prey to that seething, indignant animosity to which many rappers retreat when asked a question they do not like or deem worthy of response. But I also know that others thought him a kind and giving person, a man possessed of deeper values than the hyperclown he was most often known (and portrayed) as. I read an interview that included some comments from his mother, who recounted the tale of Dirty having his jewelry taken from him on the streets of his old neighborhood (a more common occurrence among rappers than they would have you believe), and his mother telling the interviewer that he came home and told her with evident disbelief, “They took my jewelry, mama.” You could tell that he felt belwildered, hurt, and betrayed, and he had turned to his mother for solace. While the actual experience of being relieved of a big pile of jewelry at gunpoint is certainly not particular to him or common to many of us, it showed that he was, at heart, just a regular guy like the rest of us – something unexpected and disappointing, even hurtful, happened to him, and he turned his bewilderment toward his loving mother. I’m not saying that he was this fragile, childlike person, and I don’t want to inflate the significance of the tale – I’m just pointing out that he was more like all of us than he let on and than we regarded him, and I’m sure that those close to him are feeling a deep, deep loss at his passing.

35 is too young for anyone, and while he is finally free from his numerous and varied demons, death is too high a price to pay for that freedom. Whether this was going to happen in a few years anyway seems irrelevant and cold-hearted to ponder; it’s a cynical way of looking at things and even someone like my father, who dislikes rap music and has no idea who ODB is, would agree that he had more living to do, whatever irresponsible form that living took. That he died of (most likely) bad habits and poor choices, like Pun, creates an odd frustration within me. If he had died in a blaze of gunfire, you could at least shift blame, despite the fact that the killers of most rappers elude identification and prosecution.

Sadly, I have no one over here in the Kong with whom I can discuss it. I feel that the blog entry is my only way to mourn, celebrate, and eulogize, and even then only some of my readers will have an idea of the loss of another amazing, unpredictable, and truly unique talent. Since I loved his music, and since I am a dorkus malorkus, I will listen to his music today as I walk around town and be grateful for the enjoyment he provided me. I will think of the midmorning sessions with Ramon where I made my eyebrow-raising claims that his solo album was the best of the Wu discography; I will chuckle at the memory of how Georgia liked her first listening of Dirty on a mixtape, but not her second or any future listenings; I will fondly recall his appearance on the SWV remix of “Anything” as well as the guest spots on his comrades’ records, and continue my efforts to seize the day.

I want to give a shoutout to FunkMaster Flex and all the DJs across the world
I want to give a shoutout to my nigga Luke
I want to give a shoutout to my nigga Suge Knight
To my nigga Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg
I want to give a shoutout to um, um, what's them niggas, OutKast
I want to give a shoutout to them crazy niggas in parts of the world that I never been to
I want to give a shoutout to the Eskimos
I want to give a shoutout to the submarines
I want to give a shoutout to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines
Know what I'm saying? Y'all playing my music in the submarines and the boats
Play that shit know what I'm saying?
It's called traveling music busting ya ass style
Yo Big Baby Jesus, it's One Love
I give a shout out to all the women
I give a shout out to all the babies, all the munchkins all across the world playin' hopscotch
I want to give a shoutout to all the school teachers
I give a shout out to um….ahhhh, myself..."
- ODB

Peace, Unique.
Chucky