The Artefact as a Touchstone for Shared Grief
On August 27th, 1987, the hip hop community lost an emerging star. Many of you will remember that summer, and in particular the seminal hip hop albums that emerged, such as LL Cool J’s Bigger and Deffer, Eric B. & Rakim’s Paid In Full, and MC Shan’s Down By Law, yet the summer of 1987, only five months after the released of their debut album – also seminal, I must add – Boogie Down Productions lost Scott La Rock to a vile murder: he was shot in the back of the head at only 25 years of age.
The loss of human life is, of course, tragic under any circumstance, but on the cusp of Boogie Down Productions (BDP) claiming a place of greatness in hip hop, this was especially heart-breaking to the global hip hop community.
Although suffering what could, in other cases, be such a blow that a crew might cease making music, Scott La Rock’s murder perpetuated BDP to create. The following year, BDP released the gold-certified album By All Means Necessary – not only was the LP released less than eight months after Scott La Rock’s passing, but recording for the album commenced less than a month after Scott La Rock was shot.
Additionally, and here lies the focus of this article, a double-album, Man & His Music, was released in 1988, branded with the hype line “Limited Edition – Collectors Classic”, and presenting portraits of Scott La Rock on the front and KRS-One and Scott La Rock on the reverse of the sleeve. The concept for the album resonates slightly with previous posthumous releases by other artists, particularly The Man And His Music by Sam Cooke, a collection released by RCA in 1986, 22 years after Sam Cooke’s untimely death. However, Man & His Music is more than a simple collection of songs dedicated to Scott La Rock, it is also positioned as a remix album.