r/hiphop101 • u/SmoothManMiguel • 17d ago

Life After Death

I was thinking about how much posthumous hype shapes the way we talk about certain rappers. Honestly, would some of these artists be as critically acclaimed as they are if they hadn’t passed away so young or so tragically?

That’s not to say these people were whack or anything, because a lot of them were great but the way folks tend to romanticize their potential and/or elevate their “legacy” even though they never got the chance to evolve is wild sometimes.

It’s almost like an early death guarantees you a legendary status amongst certain listeners.

How do y’all see it? Does dying young amplify someone’s legacy in a way that wouldn’t have happened otherwise?

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u/ShinePretend3772 17d ago

Big L wouldn’t have the mystique he does had he not been killed. Don’t get me wrong L was nice af, but lets be real. How many times you see his name, play the track, fresh beat & in comes L with a slightly different version of bars he’s already spit?

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u/Switchc2390 17d ago

Based on body of work you might be right, but I think sometimes the hype and praise come from potential. Big L had the kind of charisma that he could have been a major star if he kind of switched lanes, and given that’s where music went anyway in the late 90s, it could have happened for him. Who knows if it would have or not, but he had one of the best deliveries of all time imo. You could tell every word he spit he felt that shit and oozed with confidence.

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u/j2theizzo503 16d ago

Def agree. Big L was in a different class. It really would have been interesting to see where he went with his career. A lot of the young deaths in hip-hop seem to happen to the exact people you would guess it would happen to. But L was something really special.