heavy-d
And I do mean LARGEup, as in the overweight lover Heavy D. The big & tall entertainer got the documentary bio treatment from BET's Centric network Sunday--in memory of his untimely passing this past November. The dredicated yardie-watchers at LargeUp put us up on the doc when it was announced and then posted the full video when it came online (thanks, ironically, to a dude who calls himself Yardie Iz For Life). Read what they said below and watch the entire 40-minute program via the link at bottom.
Heavy D’s death in November at age 44 was sudden and surprising, but BET’s Centric network has already sprung into action with a documentary celebrating the late MC’s life. Be Inspired: The Life of Heavy D, premiering this Sunday night (Feb. 26), contains interviews with Will Smith, Queen Latifah and Mary J. Blige as well as childhood friends like Al B. Sure! and Eddie F, random associates like Malcolm Jamal-Warner, and Heavy’s parents, Clifford and Eulah Lee Myers, and is narrated by MC Lyte. Good to see that the bio makes some mention of the Mayor of Mount Vernon’s Jamaican roots and his role as a pioneer in blending hip-hop and dancehall (you can get the lowdown on all that and then some in our Heds and Dreds retrospective on the Big Belly Gorgon) as well as his more heralded role as, arguably, the first MC to successfully blend rap with R&B and pop without losing the streets’ love and respect.Personally speaking here, a quarter century after I first heard “The Overweight Lover,”, I still play Heavy’s records all of the time, and they always put me in the right mood. So we’re glad to see him get a proper tribute touching on all of the bases that made him great—just wish we could’ve seen him celebrated like he should have been during his lifetime.
>>>Watch the Heavy D "Be Inspired" Documentary (via LargeUp)
