Give Flowers As Much As You Can...

Death is a tough thing to digest… as much as we want to believe we’ll always have time … the reality is we don’t. Recently we’ve seen members of the Hip-Hop community unfortunately taken from us far too soon and that shit is beyond sad. Prayers to the families of those individuals and I hope their catalogs and legacy will carry on. But sometimes that shit hits closer to home and my city has suffered unexpected losses that deserve more than a few tweets or social media posts that prove to people that I knew them…that doesn’t do their legacy justice. While not in any of these folks close circles; our paths crossed enough for their departure to impact me in a way.

LAMARR “VEGAZ” MCCLENDON

I think I first met Vegaz in like ‘09 or ‘10; I was fresh on campus at UW-Milwaukee and managing an artist at the time and was building our strategy around breaking him on campuses throughout the UW system. Actually met Vegaz for the first time at the Sunday Cyphers at FLOW Clothing back in the day (had to be there..classic shit); at the time presenting himself as A&R for Eighty8. We continued to build and I was able to put his artist (Everyday Duch) on a stage pretty early in his career. We were similar in visionaries that were unique to our city; understood value of the blog era and how to position ourselves as creatives to be able to break out of the city with no real music market was the internet. He understood the power of merging music and fashion and presenting “culture” would be more important than anything else. We didn’t always see eye to eye. Actually bumping heads on some meaningless shit that isn’t even worth bringing up here; wasn’t “beef” at all but we never got back on “good terms” and now I’m salty about that shit. But he was one of us. If you’ve been at this thing long enough, long enough to see the performative shit that happens in the creative scene here; the smoke and mirrors shit then you’ll know just what I’m talking about. Vegaz was just that and regardless of where we stood at the time he deserves to be celebrated by this culture.

DAWAN “BIG WAN” TURNER

This one is tough more so for the Youth and younger generation than for me personally. He really positioned himself as a leader and driver of the culture. Before he was being championed as the ‘Next Up’ artist out of Milwaukee he was a charismatic student at Bradley Tech High School in which I was a staff member. We had very few interactions with one another; the occasional “let me hold something” in which he’d just grin and point or respond “sh*t its around..” I really had no idea how big the music was getting; his loved ones seem to be dedicated to carrying on his name. R.I.P Big Wan.

CHAD WILSON

Another one that hit close to home for the Bradley Tech family. During my 4 years there I had the honor and privilege of being the site facilitator for the Black & Latino Male Achievement mentoring efforts. Chad was a dedicated mentor in the BLACK & LATINO MALE ACHIEVEMENT’s FIRST THURSDAY MENTORING LUNCHEONS and was LOCKED in with my BLMA boys. He came to bball games, he chaperoned trips, he was there every month for them dudes. A huge Nipsey fan. Very active in the community in a lot of ways. If you’ve ever seen the #ENDMASSINCARCERATION T-Shirts floating around the city know that was Chad’s brainchild that was far more than just a slogan on a shirt. Real stand up dude through and through; I was excited to get back to in person mentoring sessions so we could jam more. His story, while all too common for Black and Brown men is one that needs to be lifted; he was a living testimony. Rest easy Chad.