On the morning of February 11, 2012, I was reminded of someone who was dear to me. February 11 is the birthday of a close friend who was killed by police in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2007. “Lil Joe” had been a close friend of mine since meeting him in middle school. Our relationship took off because of our mutual affection for music. Many times in class, we rapped lyrics to our favorite songs. Years later, we found ourselves creating our own music. In 2007, a week before his death, I visited Lil Joe in Las Vegas. With all of the glitz and glam of Sin City, the highlight was the creation of some good, emotional music. Lil Joe recorded his last song that Memorial Day weekend, produced by Heit.
Even though the morning of the eleventh started with a cloud of sadness–being reminded of the death of who I called my best friend–a sense of joy came during a conversation with Cheri. Days earlier, she asked me to name some of my favorite Whitney Houston songs in a discussion about music. At the time, I could not immediately recall specific songs. But this morning, somehow the topic resurfaced. Still unable to recall many of the specific songs, I started to hum “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” Cheri filled in the words, and we broke out into song the way I had in the past with Lil Joe. I, also, recalled all of the times my family members would make jokes about my sister and I for attempting to sing Whitney Houston songs with the same tenacity as “The Voice.”
Then, I mentioned that I actually sampled I Wanna Dance With Somebody. After asking Cheri to sing on my remake of the song, I made up new lyrics to the chorus of the song to have a more political message–drawing from events of U.S. wars overseas: “I really wanna pee on somebody” as a reference to U.S. marines urinating on corpses in warzones and “I really wanna be like the Nazis” in reference to the scout snipers who adopted a Nazi symbol to represent their Units. Then, we began to rundown some of our favorite Whitney Houston songs.
On The November 16th episode of The Axiom Amnesia Theory, Cheri challenged me to sing a song on the air. I wanted to choose a song that I really loved and had a great message. I decided on “The Greatest Love of All.” This has always been a favorite of mine, because of of Whitney Houston’s vocal range and glaring voice. It was her version that I was initially exposed to and drifted toward. I sang the version by George Benson because I wanted to respect the originator. Also, George Benson’s version it was my mother’s graduation song, so it was an ode to her as well for being a great facilitor for what would become known as Heit.
After being told of the Whitney Houston’s death, I–of course–did not believe it, so I began my search for confirmation as did after hearing of my friends death in 2007. After receiving devastating conformation, I took a trip through social media to see what the talk of the web was, as I do anytime there is ‘big news.’ What I found was disturbing. The trending topics on twitter were: R.I.P Whitney Houston, #DearWhitney, #IWillAlwaysLoveYou, etc. But one seemed out of place to me–#Crackkills.
Should I see the #Crackkills hashtag as something negative. Even though the cause of death had not been confirmed, it is absolutely normal for people to draw conclusions based on prior knowledge to a person’s behaviors and practices. Knowing that drugs could actually be the cause, I do not believe I can completely deem the hashtag as insensitive and wrong. If, in fact, we learn that Whitney Houston’s death was the result of a drug overdose or complications from drug use in the past, #Crackkills would be a much needed message in a time when so many of us are being affected negatively by hard drugs. That is to say that, if YOU want to stay alive and health(y)ier, see the tragedy of Whitney Houston as an example of what would possibly be your own fate.
On the other hand, #Crackkills could be viewed as a way to parody and mock a person’s downfall. It could be a sick way to make a joke and laugh about a person’s struggle with a condition that is extremely difficult to escape.
Either way, no one is just one thing. Whitney Houston was the woman with a beautiful voice, drug addiction, and some of society’s most memorable quotes: “Hell to the naw” and “Crack is wack.” A person’s death is not what makes them, it’s EVERYTHING up until that point, and maybe even some of what they contribute to the world after the fact.
Yet, the day started to look as though it would end with sadness, but a Whitney Houston song can always help you to see things differently.
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