When the stunning news hit and spread around (I first saw the sad news on Instagram) that Brooklyn legend Sean Price aka Ruck aka Donkey Sean Jr aka Dr Kill Patient aka P aka The Metal Bearded Goon had passed away in his sleep on August 8th 2015, it was (and still is) of utter bewilderment and the feeling of a tremendous loss to Hip Hop, he was only 43 and one of the greatest to ever touch a mic and had given more to Hip Hop than some actually know.
Sean Price defined pure ruggedness and rawness and was just dope plain and simple and his lyrics were easily quotable for example most recently on Gangrene's "Sheet Music" "My dreams is big, my crib is little" "Snuff to the wack boy, biggest N.....a in my group Buff from the Fat Boys P!"
After coming through on Smif N Wessun's Dah Shinin' album on "Cession at Da Doghille" in 1995 and later with Heltah Skeltah (and O.G.C.) back in on the classic Fab 5 singles...
In 1996 Ruck and partner Rockness Monstah added another classic to Brooklyn's Boot Camp Clik classics cannon with the release of Nocturnal...the album contained fat production from Baby Paul, Evil Dee, Mr. Walt, Buckshot, E-Swift, Shawn.J.Period and Ruck and Rock themselves, they followed up their debut album with Magnum Force in 1998 and D.I.R.T.in 2008
But it wasn't until the early 2000's when he changed his name to Sean Price that he really became a ferocious, big, menacing, gruff and ill voiced MC that his talent really shined, he released a few singles and later mix-tapes with P.F. Cuttin' and when his debut solo album Monkey Barz dropped in 2005 people really paid attention, P was just destroying mics left, right and center and was carving out a niche that he wasn't want to be effed with lyrically (and physically no doubt.)
Monkey Barz saw Sean Price link up with North Carolina producing wunderkinds 9th Wonder and Khrysis for the first single and who didn't love "Onion Head" and "Heartburn"?
P followed up his debut album with Jesus Price Superstar in 2007 and again he linked up with both 9th Wonder and Khyrsis (who produced the head cracking "King Kong" as well as Tommy Tee, MoSS, Illmind and others.
This was followed up with Master-P (2007), Kimbo Price and Mic Tyson in 2012 which saw P blaze tracks from The Alchemist and Evidence who seemed to know exactly the right ill concoctions to lace P with, sadly this album also featured an appearance from the late, great Pumpkinhead who also left us way too soon in 2015
P was also a part of Duck Down's Hip Hop super-group BCC (Buckshot, Heltah Skeltah, O.G.C, & Smif N Wessun) aka Boot Camp Clik who released For The People in 1998
The Chosen Few in 2002 and The Last Stand in 2006 and Casualties of War in 2007.
In 2011 he hooked up with Detroit natives (ill producer and MC) Black Milk and MC Guilty Simpson and formed Random Axe (although the origins of Random Axe go back to Guilty's debut album Ode To The Ghetto (2008) and the track "Run") personally "Monster Babies" is the one of the greatest things he ever did, that verse still has me :o and telling people and happily quoting it haha, sadly though only one album was made from this dope group although there was talk that a finished second album was due but there isn't an official release date or any news of this yet.
For the self proclaimed "Brokest Rapper you know" the amount of artists (producers and MC's) he worked with Worldwide is actually quite staggering and this in no way an exhaustive list but it's safe to say that at some stage, Sean Price worked with your favourite rapper and/or favourite producer.
PF Cuttin's-Tribute To Sean Price
Sean Price Features at Discogs
Sean Price-Passion Of Price Doco
P's Top 20 fave albums of all time
Sean Price Breaks Down His 25 Most Essential Songs
But let's not forget that P had a great sense of humour and was often filming bugged out clips that just made you laugh hard and by all accounts he was obviously an incredible live performer
I have spoken to some good people on Facebook that knew him well and they said that he always kept it 100 and was one of the dopest and funniest dudes you could ever meet, he will be greatly missed but we will always have his music and who knows exactly how much music he had in the vaults...though he did say that he had done an album with Lil Fame and his new album Songs In The Key of Price drops late August 2015.
Tribute Morals from NYC (Mere One) and France respectively...
Tribute Mixes:
http://www.egotripland.com/rip-sean-price-tribute-mix
DJ Premier & DJ Eclipse Honor Sean Price With A 3 Hour Tribute (Mix)
Donate to the late, great Sean Price's Family
http://crowdrise.com/seanp
R.I.P. Sean P
March 17, 1972 – August 8, 2015
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