Heds and Dreds: Remembering the Big-Belly Gorgon Heavy D

As we mentioned in our RIP post, the impact Dwight Arrington (sometimes spelled Errington) Myers –AKA Heavy D–had on our current musical landscape cannot be measured just by the sales or views garnered by his own records, but must also account for his king-making moves behind the scenes. He  happened to mentor some cats named Puffy and Biggie (you heard of ‘em) but true Heavy connoisseurs know that that besides being the Overweight Lover the Jamaica-born Myers was also the Big Belly Gorgon. Appropriately, one of his biggest contributions to rap was his pioneering role in fusing hip-hop and reggae in the early 90s–not only in his own patois-inflected songs but also in putting on dancehall star Super Cat.

In the latest installment of his Heds and Dreds column, LargeUp editor Jesse Serwer breaks it all down for us, running through 8 classic Big Belly Gorgon tunes and collaborations—and throwing in some rap history bonus material like this 1992 Yo! MTV Raps clip of Heavy messing about on the 1200s just before Cat launches into an improvised version of “Ghetto Red Hot” (above). Get the rest of Heavy’s backchat catalog–from “Mood For Love” to “Queen Majesty” with the full Heds & Dreds tribute at LU.