Over the weekend, the hip-hop community was hit with sad news. Early '90s rapper MC Breed died in his sleep, only two months after being released from an Atlanta hospital for kidney failure. He was just 36 years old. The official cause of death is still pending.
It's a death that caught a lot of people off guard who didn't know that MC Breed (born Eric Breed) was even sick. The Flint, Michigan native was popular in the early '90s due to his landmark singles, "Ain't No Future in Yo Frontin'" and his breakout collaboration with Tupac Shakur on the song, "I Gotta Get Mine." He never gravitated toward mainstream success the way he could have, but he was respected by a lot of people in the hip-hop industry.
His beats and rhyming style gave him more of a West Coast feel to an extent, and Sway Calloway of MTV recently commented that a lot of people initially thought Breed was from the Bay Area. Even though he never recorded another major hit after the two mentioned above, his place in the hip-hop history books is secured. And "Gotta Get Mine" should go down as one of the top 100 hip-hop songs of all time.
Here's the video for the song that introduced him to the world, "Ain't No Future in Yo Frontin.'" I'm glad that Breed lived long enough to see Barack Obama get elected president. In this same songs he spits, "If I was the president, then I would state facts, you leave it up to me I'd paint the White House black--it ain't no future in yo frontin.'" R.I.P. to a legend. His music presence will be sorely missed.
--Jonathan Cunningham
