On this day 4 years ago, New York rapper and co-founder of Pro Era – Capital Steez committed suicide at the age of 19 when he jumped off a building’s rooftop in the late hours of the night. Hip Hop and its newly-formed “Beast-coast” movement suffered a significant loss of one of its most-promising talents by the hands of mental-illness and a severe social issue – especially amongst our youth.
As a 19 year-old now myself, I think I’ve recently been able to identify and relate with the ideas in Steez’s music that I couldn’t exactly connect with before: the character of a misunderstood introvert pushed into an environment that forces them to interact, the motif of a person with profound thoughts and feelings they can’t translate into exact words yet, the theme of a person finding solace in the culture of their city, and the belief that “the world is mine” yet everyone else around me has it better than me despite my efforts. All of these elements in Capital Steez’s music formed an underlying narrative of an artist tackling their own identity, their own culture, and facing personal tribulations like lust, envy, greed, and hate – something that resonates with most people.
Finding yourself (particularly at this age of our lives) is a process of critically analyzing, understanding and re-interpreting your past, your influences and whatever else has shaped you. Some things you find while on this process are hard to come to terms with; maybe it’s because certain discoveries challenge our perceptions, and pressure us to make (uncomfortable) changes to deconstruct our identity and rebuild it. I’ve been through it all this past year though, and it was always a struggle to confront my closest circle of friends and family about these ideas and feelings within me; so I can only assume it must’ve been even harder for Capital Steez, and any other artist really, to express his feelings to not just his closest circle of friends or family, but to his fans and whoever hears his music too.
RIP STEELO (all-caps when you spell the man’s name).
Amerikkkan Korruption still holds one of my favourite intro tracks of all time
ATCVU 