Freeway reunited with his State Property family and Just Blaze at a special concert celebrating his debut album Philadelphia Freeway this past weekend.
The 44-year-old took over The Fillmore in his hometown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Sunday (February 26) for a concert celebrating the 20th anniversary of his debut album Philadelphia Freeway. Footage from the night surfaced online shortly after the concert and showed various clips of Freeway in action alongside his special guests, State Property.
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In one of the more touching pieces of footage, the entire State Property crew was on stage at once, along with Just Blaze, to perform one of Free’s most popular hits, “What We Do” featuring Beanie Sigel and JAY-Z. One of State Property’s fiercest rivals, Jadakiss, also popped up as a special guest to add to the big night.
State Property was a group of rappers from Philly organized by Freeway and Beanie Sigel, who became a part of Roc-A-Fella Records in the early 2000s. The group members consisted of Peedi Crakk, Oschino Vasquez, Omillio Sparks and the duo Young Gunz (Young Chris and Neef Buck).
They dropped their debut album in 2002 as an official soundtrack for the 2001 film State Property, which they all starred in. The album peaked at No. 1 and No. 14 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums and 200 chart, respectively.
Their sophomore effort, The Chain Gang Vol. 2, did much better, reaching No. 1 and No. 6 on the same charts a year after their debut. However, things wouldn’t last as relationships within the group went awry after Sigel was sent to prison in 2004.
The Broad Street Bully claimed no one on State Property supported him in prison, and the collective disbanded shortly after. Things have since been repaired between the members.
One of State Property’s biggest hits almost received a huge remix treatment from the late R&B star Aaliyah. During a visit to Math Hoffa’s My Expert Opinion podcast, longtime Roc-A-Fella engineer Young Guru revealed she was slated to hop on a remix to Beanie Sigel and Freeway’s “Roc the Mic” days after her tragic plane crash in 2001.
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“When Aaliyah died, Aaliyah was supposed to be coming to us, flying to us,” he explained. “She had already called Just [Blaze] and was supposed to be doing a remix with Just. The first time I ever seen Hip Hop [Kyambo Joshua] cry.
“She had left us — she had heard ‘Roc the Mic’ when we did it. We was about to go to the strip club and Freeway was complaining, ‘Yo, we been down here for a week and you giving all the beats to Beans and [Memphis] Bleek.’ He looking at Just like, ‘Yo, I can’t get nothing?'”
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Young Guru continued: “Just is real quick on the ASR-X… A little longer, like 10 minutes maybe… Aaliyah had heard ‘Roc the Mic’ and she made a point to say something to Hip Hop and was like, ‘That’s the one.'”
