“I do it for the forefathers, the street authors.” Jay-Z/Kanye West, “The Joy”, Watch the Throne. 2011.

ORDER. Today I decided to take a different approach to the DDR in honor of rapper/actor Dwight Arrington Myers, aka “The Overweight Lover”, aka “Heavy D.”  I have so many memories of Heavy D.  I was a young 13 year-old hip-hop fanatic, and remember listening to “Mr. Big Stuff”, “Love Me for Me”, and “We Got Our Own Thing” with a sense of freedom to dance and be as I wanted to.  Heavy D was light-skinned and overweight.  He wore his trademark sunglasses, and danced so confidently it was difficult to deny him a spot in the spotlight.  He was cute, and I memorized all of the dances performed by him, G-Whiz, and Trouble T-Roy, his two back-up dancers.  It was a sad day when Trouble T-Roy died from an accidental fall.  I remember the entire hip-hop community mourning his death – Pete Rock and CL Smooth in “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)” and especially Heavy D on his 1991 album Peaceful Journey.

And now we mourn the death of Heavy D, who was found in his LA home unconscious.  No cause of death has been determined as of the writing of this DDR.

The DDR: Three things Heavy D taught us: (1) good art is timeless.  It doesn’t require us to curse eachother out. It doesn’t require us to kill anyone.  It only requires that we love, honor, and respect ourselves and those around us. Check out below his first performance in 15 years at the BET Awards. Notice how the ladies have on clothes. A sign of the time; (2) confidence comes from within.  Heavy D could’ve let the demands of the industry keep him from reaching his destiny.  He chose to use his HEAVY stature as a positive, rather than a negative.  He most definitely did his own thing; and (3) the first hip-hop generation is getting older.  We must take care of ourselves.  We must take care of one another.  We must take care of our community.  RIP Heavy D! We honor your contribution to hip-hop culture and to the world.