Today in Hip-Hop — November 8: 15 Years Without Heavy D, and His Cousin Pete Rock’s The Main Ingredient Turns 32

November 8, 2011. Heavy D collapsed outside his home in Beverly Hills and died at Cedars-Sinai. He was 44. That was fifteen years ago today. The date hits harder once you know its history. Exactly seventeen years earlier, on Tuesday, November 8, 1994, his first cousin Pete Rock released The Main Ingredient with CL Smooth on Elektra. One Mount Vernon family, two anniversaries, same day. The first jewel is in the liner notes: the cover portrait is credited to photographer Danny Clinch.

The Overweight Lover’s Last Bow

Heavy D & the Boyz were the first group Uptown Records ever signed. Heav was the only rapper in the group, and the crew around him was close-knit: Eddie F on the decks and as his business partner, plus G-Wiz and Trouble T-Roy dancing. Over five group albums, Hev rapped over beats by Teddy Riley, Marley Marl, DJ Premier, Eddie F and his little cousin Pete. He guested on Janet Jackson’s “Alright” in 1989, back when rap features on pop records were still rare. He traded verses with Michael Jackson on “Jam,” sang the In Living Color theme, and got a namecheck on Biggie’s “Juicy.” Later he became president of Uptown. His last live performance was with Eddie F at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta, about a month before he died. It was the duo’s first televised set together in fifteen years. The autopsy found a pulmonary embolism. We told the family-tree story (how Hev’s older brother Floyd taught Pete Rock to DJ) in our Living Large anniversary piece.

The Main Ingredient: A Crate List Hiding in the Credits

Pete Rock & CL Smooth recorded and mixed the whole album at Greene St. Recording in New York. The writer credits read like a map of Pete’s crates. George Duke is credited on “In the House,” Harvey Scales on “Sun Won’t Come Out,” Earth, Wind & Fire’s Maurice White on “Escape,” the Mizell brothers on “All the Places,” Keni Burke on “Take You There,” and jazz keyboardist Bobby Lyle on “Check It Out.” Listen for the voice that opens “Get On the Mic.” It’s Pete’s younger brother Grap Luva, uncredited on the sleeve. Pete scratched Biz Markie vocals all over the record, and the album is where his signature sound fully took shape: filtered basslines, swirling horns and drums that snap.

It got overlooked in 1994. Critics have since come around, and AllMusic now rates it as good as the debut, maybe better. It’s also the duo’s last studio album to date. They split not long after, so the story ends here: CL at his most composed, Pete at the peak of his SP-1200 years. If you came in through “T.R.O.Y.,” start with our Mecca and the Soul Brother breakdown and work forward.

Wear It

We made a Main Ingredient tee for heads who still run “Searching” on a gray November morning. Mount Vernon soul, Greene Street polish, a credit list that doubles as a record-shopping list. Wear it in memory of the Overweight Lover too. The family tree runs through both of them.

Also Today in Hip-Hop

• 1971: Tech N9ne is born (55 today). He dropped Welcome to Strangeland, the fourth Collabos album, on his 40th birthday in 2011 through Strange Music. It debuted at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 with no major label behind it.
• 2011: Mac Miller’s Blue Slide Park (15 years). It opened at No. 1 with 144,000 copies on Rostrum. That made it the first independently distributed debut to top the Billboard 200 since Tha Dogg Pound’s Dogg Food in 1995. Pittsburgh’s kid did that.
• 1994: Keith Murray’s The Most Beautifullest Thing in This World (32 years). It dropped the same Tuesday as The Main Ingredient. Erick Sermon produced almost all of it, Redman and Busta also got production credits, and the RIAA certified it gold in August 1995.
• 2011: Pusha T’s Fear of God II: Let Us Pray (15 years). The EP re-released his March mixtape with four new songs, including “Trouble on My Mind” with Tyler, the Creator.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team

Jon Jones