In a tribute at Ebony, Dream Hampton says the late hip-hop heavyweight, who committed suicide this week, was a “true pioneer.”
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… Lighty was passionate about integrity — especially when it came to New York hip hop. On his blog in 2010, after rumors about 50 Cent-related violence, he ranted about the street violence that always managed to crossover into the business of hip hop. In all caps he wrote: “YOU HAVE SEEN THE SENSELESS LOSSES THAT WE HAVE HAD IN HIP HOP. I WILL NOT CONDONE ANY VIOLENCE. I AM A BUSINESS MAN IN THE BUSINESS OF BRANDING MY MUSIC AND EXPANDING HIP HOP.”
His last tweet remembered DJ Scott La Rock, the original DJ for KRS One’s Boogie Down Productions and one of rap music’s first fallen stars. A week before, on August 13, Lighty tweeted that slavery was alive and well in the music industry, the space in which he’d spent his adult life working.
Most recently there were talks of he and Cee Lo’s manager Michael Blue Williams joining forces to begin a publishing company.
Lighty was obviously not without his problems, too; he was divorcing his wife with whom he reportedly argued as he was moving out of their home just prior to shooting himself.
Bronx rapper Fat Joe tweeted that Lighty helped ‘save his life.’ Joe is in a sea of heavyweights to proclaim Chris Lighty’s impact on their lives. Today, the urban music industry community lost a true pioneer.
Read Dream Hampton’s entire piece at Ebony.
The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions are shared by our editorial staff.
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