Deen is crying tears of Seagrams.
This one hurts. Bad. I know that the last time we all heard about Tim Dog, he was on Dateline or Nightline doing some unsavory shit to some silly broad’s life savings, but I’m pretty sure that won’t be the way we remember the man – even if I suspect that he wouldn’t mind at all. But forget I mentioned it anyway and fuck diabetes.
What else can you say about a man that didn’t just sit on his ass and whine about what he considered a lack of respect from Hip-Hop media? He got busy, took on an entire coast and made a hit (“Fuck Compton” – fuck your subliminals). Then he followed that hit up with what might be the gulliest and hardest album ever: Penicillin On Wax. A fucking triumph.
That shit blew my mind the first time I heard it. As a former knucklehead and forever troll, I’ve never identified with a rap album more than I did during the first listen I gave that classic. Penicillin On Wax is one of the most entertaining listens in the history of music. He can’t rap for shit, but the constant snarling and indiscriminate shit-talking over great production is an undeniable formula. Seriously. This guy told an entire hood filled with some pretty gangsta people to fuck off (‘Fuck Compton’) and talked shit without pause for 20 songs. That impresses the fuck outta me – I’m that kinda guy.”
All the shit talking was sorta tongue in cheek, but no one that’s heard it would ever doubt Tim’s willingness to back all that shit talking up. And while I’m at it, the second album, Do or Die, was pretty entertaining too. And he talked an ungodly amount of shit throughout both albums. Without pause. Impressive by any standards, especially if you’re a shit-talking savant yourself.
Tim Dog wasn’t the first rapper of his kind and there’s a good chance that most of the blunter, goon-styled rappers that we’ve heard in the last decade or so never even heard of the man, but he certainly was a spiritual forefather to a lotta these cats. Every time I’ve been to New York, I’ve avoided Bronx just because I’d rather not run into any niggas like Tim. Well, that and the fact that all my friends live in Brooklyn. Tim Dog woulda hate them.
I’m genuinely sad. RIP Tim Dog. You’ll be missed…
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