It has been a year since Chinx’s untimely passing. In the wake of his death, Douglas “Biggs” Ellison, Chinx’s manager, had the weighty task of completing the Queens, New York rapper’s debut album, Welcome To JFK. The project reached the #21 position on Billboard’s Top 200 albums chart upon its release in August and gave a fitting tribute to propel Chinx to the status of urban legend.
Now, Biggs is in charge of curating another Chinx album, Legends Never Die, and his burden is a little lighter as time heals all. Yet because of the success of Welcome To JFK, the task still carries weight.
“Of course when you put out another project, the first thing you’re doing is competing with yourself,” Biggs says in an exclusive interview with HipHopDX, “because you want it to be just as good as, if not better than the last body of work that you did. So with that being said, I think I’m being a lot more critical this time around because with the last project he had heard almost every record that was going on it and this time it’s more of a process of just going through the records and putting together a story making sure it makes sense.”
Chinx’s second posthumous album was slated for a June 3 release, but was pushed back to August. The team has released two singles from Legends Never Die, “For the Love” and “Like This,” to show to the label, Entertainment One, that fans are still hungry for new Chinx music.
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“We want to make sure that we give Chinx the best look possible,” Biggs says, saying that after ensuring the mixing and mastering were in motion, the marketing and promotion were crucial to a successful release.
One highlight that Biggs points out on Legends Never Die is the Riot Squad track “All Good” that reunites Chinx with his late friend Stack Bundles and Bynoe and Cau2G$. He says that it’s finalizing details like this that are important to this project.
“I don’t believe in just throwing something out because he’s not here,” the manager continues, “there are still unique ways that we can promote it and push it out to the fans and everybody that loves and has an affinity for him, to make sure that his music continues to live on and continue to create the legacy and allow us to continue to support his family, his wife, his kids, and his organization.”
Chinx will now be memorialized through his music and the Lionel C. Pickens Foundation, which Biggs says has just been made official. The non-profit will seek to provide scholarships for kids from Chinx’s hometown of Queens, New York as well as other resources needed by the community. Biggs says that the death of Stack Bundles in 2007 combined with Chinx’s murder in May of last year has left a deep void in the neighborhood of Far Rockaway.
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“Violence happens everywhere, everyday, but it’s not often you see two people that are on the verge of being superstars get gunned down and ironically they’re from the same community,” Biggs says. He will run the foundation with Chinx’s mother and widow. “So the reality check there was that we really have the voice the message of ‘This violence has to stop’ and whatever the circumstances surrounding it, nothing is worth taking a life. So the goal there is to reach back to the kids and to try and set some positive examples through his legacy and allow it to live on where we can give some folks the opportunity to get out of bad situations and be productive people in society. And for most that’s going to college, and for a lot of people in the community that they come from, that’s not even an option. It’s not even something that’s thought about or aspired to do and be because of the financial strains that come along with it. So that was the number one goal.”
One artist who helped Chinx along his journey was French Montana. The Coke Boys founder honored his friend on the recent Wave Gods mixtape. He dedicated the “Off The Rip (Remix)” video to Chinx as A$AP Rocky paid tribute to his late friend A$AP Yams. Biggs says he appreciates the Bad Boy rapper’s continual support of Chinx, but is happy to see that Chinx has become his own artist with a brand he believes Legends Never Die will continue to build.
“I think what most people are realizing more than anything else is that Chinx is standing on his own and kind of getting to that point in his career where he wanted to show people who and what he was,” Biggs says. “And I respect the fact that French understood that and its growth and any artist’s career that they have to stand on their own two feet. And the same can be said even in his passing. We’re going to create a project that can stand on its own with or without anybody, you’re going to be able to appreciate who Chinx is, was, and what he brought to the culture.”
Pre-order Legends Never Die on iTunes.
