Remembering Disco D

When my friend Conscious hit me with an IM late Tuesday afternoon saying he had heard Disco D committed suicide I was shocked. I immediately looked for a news piece that could corroborate this and sadly found more than one. My first thought was “this can’t be happening again.” First in April of last year Proof was murdered, then in September LEFTist was taken from us in a tragic, and still unsolved, hit and run, and now at the very start of 2007 Disco D had taken his own life. Disco was an acquaintance of mine, and we worked together on a few projects. Today I’m going to take a minute to remember Disco D as I knew him.

I met Disco D in 2005 through, what else, a press kit that was sent my way. He had just finished up working with Sara Stokes, formerly of Bad Boy’s Da Band, and in my mailbox I had her new work, which included a lead single produced by Disco D, and a few Disco D compilations to get me up to speed on everything else he had been up to. Suddenly I was looking through liner notes of old albums, discovering he had worked with Nina Sky and 50 Cent, and I was completely digging his current projects. It was settled, I wanted to interview him.

Once I got Disco D on the phone I could tell right off the bat he was someone I wanted to build with. Talented, but not cocky. Hard working, but in his own unique way. I remember Sara Stokes telling me he created a party atmosphere in his studio, The Booty Barn, for a club track she was working on, the thought being you had to have the vibe right for the song to come out correctly. That was something I really dug as I’m constantly trying to find ways to put myself in the correct mental state for specific tasks.

After Disco and I had spoken for about three quarters of an hour we exchanged info, added each other on MySpace, and kept in contact. In my head I had grand ideas involving my friends getting famous enough to be able to afford Disco’s beats and everyone being one big successful family. I even told him about a few of my people, noting they weren’t big enough to afford his beats yet but would be soon enough. Helping artists I feel deserve some fame was one of the main reasons I started my Artist Of The Week features. Guess who was one of the first people on board for an interview? Yup, Disco D.

I think Disco completely understood what I was looking to do for the artists I was working with because he was looking to do the same thing for the artists he was working with. Both of us were simply down for our people. It was hard to imagine how anyone could not get along with him.

During our Artist Of The Week interview we spoke a little bit about “Popozao” and working with Kevin Federline. He never really revealed his true feelings about it. Was it about the pay day? Was it about the notoriety? Did he really want to work with K-Fed? Was there a tremendous potential to link up with someone else, perhaps someone K-Fed happened to be married to at the time? All of those questions are left unanswered and do you know what, that’s fine. What he told me was:

I have the honor of saying I was the first producer to ever lay his (Federline’s) voice over a track.

The world can take his answer to my question however they want to, as full on truth, as sarcasm, or as sly wit. Personally I’m going with the third.

Suicide never entered my mind when I thought of Disco D. He always seemed to be a really together individual, but the universe can break a person down in ways we can’t ever imagine. The added tragedy to this is that Disco, much like Proof and LEFTist, was on the verge of doing something really big. Maybe God felt that when it came to the masses, to use a tired rap cliché, “ya’ll ain’t ready for this.” Rest In Peace Disco D.