Remembrance for PnB Rock

When will East Coast rappers, especially from New York City, and Philly know that the streets have no love, streets gotta eat, and that things are not sweet out in those LA streets? PnB Rock has been laid down after being robbed and shot to death. Did he literally show his plate to a brute who was hungry? It is a shame that these young warriors on the microphone don’t realize that to keep themselves alive another day requires environmental awareness.

PnB Rock didn’t even reach levels attained by the likes of Drake, Kanye West, or Lil’ Wayne. But he had a solid base that cared about his work and wanted to see him live to produce more efforts. He kept his nose to the grindstone and ear to the street. He released singles and albums like the best of them. To his supporters, he was a champ. Yet this did not stop the bullets from his killers to silence him forever.

From the Notorious B.I.G. to Pop Smoke, PnB will go down as another artist from the East that was wiped out from rounds on the West Coast. What was he doing out there? The Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles joint did not have to be his final destination, but he chose to be there. Of course that does not give allowance to the shooters who placed him on permanent ban from the land of the living.

With all of the other venues that he could have visited, couldn’t he have at least gotten a cheesesteak in his hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania? Why did he not recognize the unspoken and spoken codes for rappers who hail from outside of Los Angeles? Why did he allow his significant other to drop a location? Even rappers like Nipsey Hussle whose own stomping grounds was the scene of his demise. What PnB lacked was the acknowledgement that he could, (like all of us) get touched at any moment. It’s not even about where his security was during the fateful incident. It’s about the fact that Rock failed to see the truth behind the gun. That is that in order to survive and thrive in LA, you’ve got to know your terrain. You’ve got to know where you are and what you’re doing or else end up a memory in the row with stuffed teddy bears and glowing candles.

In addition, there will be those who say he is resting in the arms of Abraham. People will say he is now treading the streets of gold in an invented fantasyland. With every passing day, Rock will be remembered for the potential he could have been. The same people will say that God needed him more. They will say that Jesus wanted to hear him rap in person. All of this will not be based in reality. The reality is that he no longer has the chance to witness his full potential. At just thirty years of age, PnB was poised to launch into the stratosphere like his peers. Instead, he will be forever remembered as another rapper gunned down in the LA streets. To live and die in LA is an observance that has become all too familiar in the past decades. When Rock had sat down for his meal, he did not see that it would be his last. Those greasy strips of fried chicken and soft waffles covered in sticky sweet syrup could have killed him over time but those blasters knocked him out of life. Did he fight? Did he not check the female in his life? Did he put up a struggle upon being robbed? Did he know that it’s better to just give up those valuables rather than taste dust?

We may never know the circumstances of his final seconds on this earth as a living, breathing, creative human being. But one thing is for certain: when the gunman runs down, respect the jux.