before i lose my style

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Lil Phat - “Feel My Pain” (Mixtape, 2009)

Earlier today Trill Fam/3 Deep member Lil Phat was murdered at just 19 years old. As is usually the case, Twitter is abuzz, putting Phat is in the unfortunate position of being both over-mourned by people who just discovered him, counter-mourned by those who just love to point this out and callously mocked by those who won’t care enough to take the time to find out who he was. And this whole mess is amplified because Phat was a lesser known artist on a label that is both revered in some corners of hip hop and deeply derided in others.

Putting all that aside, Phat was a very good rapper, a utility player on what might be the most consistently excellent rap imprint of the past decade or so, and he will be missed.  His early stuff was appropriately immature and sometimes hilarious - at just 15 he damn near stole Webbie’s “Independent” with the never smell like onion rings line - but he had been evolving into a more introspective artist in recent years, as you can hear above. His 2009 tape, Death Before Dishonor, would be a good place to start if you’re interested in exploring his catalog.

R.I.P.

I’m not going to pretend I really knew Lil Phat beyond “the guy on ‘Independent’ who wasn’t Webbie or Lil Boosie” but this is still awful news.