When Black Rob died suddenly in April of 2021, the Hip Hop world was still reeling from the equally jarring death of DMX just eight days prior. The last thing on anyone’s mind was music, but as the mourning period passed, those in his circle began to galvanize efforts to keep the artist who had brought us classics like “Woah” and “I Love You Baby,” alive through his art.
Producer Nashiem Myrick, one of Bad Boy Records heralded Hitmen and a friend of Black Rob collaborated with him on a number tracks, including “Life Story” and “Lookin At Us.” He tells HipHopDX that a forthcoming Black Rob album is in the works, thanks to the efforts of fellow Hitman Deric ‘D-Dot’ Angeletti, and is being teased by a collaboration with Black Thought called “No Matter What.”
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“So that beat you just heard is from the nineties and I had gave this to D-Dot a while ago,” Myrick says after pressing play on the dark, piano-tinged track co-produced with Carlos “6 July” Broady. “He used to always call me cause he always had things he was working on. He said, ‘Yo, Nash, this beat, I gotta find something for it.’ He used to play it for me over the phone. And it got to the point where I was like, ‘I don’t remember this beat.’ [laughs] But I remember it being [me and] Los [Broady]. I was like, yeah, I sent it to you from me and Los. So one day he was like, ‘yo, I want you to listen to your shit.’
Black Thought posted the track to his Instagram and revealed that he and the late MC had talked about doing a joint project before he passed.
“Rest in power Rob,” he wrote. “We’d always joked about a black to black project. This woulda been that vibe.”
Myrick adds that producer Tony Dofat, who worked with Heavy D, Bad Boy’s The Band and on Black Rob’s 2005 album, The Black Rob Report, also has a joint on the forthcoming project “that’s nuts!”
“Black Rob was the homie, like, he’s one of the only artists that I actually had in my crib,” Myrick adds. “That’s how cool we were. You know? He was just that dude like, we was just close. He was close to all of us though. He had a lot of empathy with him cause he had his problems, you know what I mean? He has his trials and tribulations. But it made him more human and less of an artist with us. [He] was just a homie. Now he was a star, but he was just so…he’s a regular dude.”
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Check back to HipHopDX for our full interview with Nashiem Myrick where he talks about his work with Lil Kim, Notorious B.I..G and more.
