Heavy D dies at 44

DERRIK J. LANG,AP Enter­tain­ment Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Heavy D, the self-proclaimed “over­weight lover” of hip-hop who became one of rap’s top hit-makers with wit, humor and a pos­i­tive vibe, has died. He was 44.

Lt. Mark Rosen of the Bev­erly Hills police said Heavy D died in a Los Ange­les hos­pi­tal Tues­day after col­laps­ing at his con­do­minium building.

Rosen said Bev­erly Hills police offi­cers were dis­patched to Heavy D’s con­do­minium build­ing Tues­day morn­ing after receiv­ing a report of an uncon­scious per­son lay­ing on the walk­way of a build­ing. They found Heavy D was con­scious and com­mu­nica­tive but had dif­fi­culty breath­ing and was trans­ported to Cedars Sinai Med­ical Cen­ter, where he later died.

Rosen said Bev­erly Hills detec­tives found no signs of foul play and believe his death is med­ically related. He said Heavy D “was return­ing home from shop­ping. He expe­ri­enced dif­fi­culty breath­ing while walk­ing into his con­do­minium build­ing. He was being assisted up to his apart­ment by build­ing per­son­nel when he col­lapsed in an exte­rior hallway.”

The last tweet from Heavy D posted Tues­day morn­ing read, “BE INSPIRED!”

Dwight Arring­ton Myers, the rap­per known as Heavy D of Heavy D and the Boyz, and his crew released their debut album “Liv­ing Large” in 1987. Their hits included “Now That We Found Love,” ”Who’s the Man” and “Some­body For Me.”

The New York-born rap­per was one of the genre’s most inte­gral stars in the last 1980s and early 1990s, as it relied on new voices and star power to fuel its phe­nom­e­nal growth in the mainstream.

The deep-voiced rapper’s ear­li­est hit, “The Over­weight Lover’s in the House,” played up his hefty frame. But while that nick­name would stick, his weight did not become part of his shtick, like the Fat Boys. What drew peo­ple to his music was his sin­gu­lar style, which cel­e­brated an easy­go­ing, party vibe — some­times humor­ous, some­times inspir­ing and almost always positive.

In the mid-1990s, Heavy D became pres­i­dent of Uptown Records, the label that released most of his albums and was also the home to acts like Mary J. Blige and Jodeci. He also cre­ated the theme songs for sketch com­edy shows “In Liv­ing Color” and “MADtv” and acted on the TV shows “Boston Pub­lic” and “The Tracy Mor­gan Show,” as well as in the films “Life” and “Step Up.”

“Most know Heavy D as a rap icon,” said actor-comedian Tommy David­son. “I con­sid­ered him a brother who made an indeli­ble mark on me as a per­former and a human being. I miss him already.”

Com­bined with the fusion of the “New Jack Swing” musi­cal style, Heavy D was a con­stant pres­ence on the charts, and also a go-to fig­ure for sev­eral per­form­ers. He col­lab­o­rated with such artists as Michael Jack­son on the 1991 sin­gle “Jam” and the 1997 duet “Keep It Com­ing” with B.B. King.

Heavy D attempted a reggae-fueled come­back in 2008 with the album “Vibes,” which didn’t con­tain any rap­ping. He returned to rap­ping on his lat­est album, “Love Opus,” which was released in Sep­tem­ber, and he per­formed a med­ley of his past hits at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards last month.

“I’m so glad that we got to work together for his per­for­mance at last month’s BET Hip-Hop Awards,” said Stephen Hill, BET’s pres­i­dent of music pro­gram­ming and spe­cials. “Hev was focused, ener­getic and happy. He worked hard, as he always had, to excite the crowd. Our con­do­lences go to his fam­ily and specif­i­cally his daugh­ter who he doted on. He was a unique fig­ure in hip-hop and will be missed.”

He also had a cameo appear­ance in the new movie “Tower Heist,” star­ring Eddie Mur­phy and Ben Stiller.

Posted by AP News on Nov 10 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.