'It was 2005 and I was living in Los Angeles when Heavy D came into the Blockbuster Video I worked at. I can't be sure if it was simply the crew's immunity to seeing celebrities or that it was way past Heavy's time to have customer service representatives doting on him. Whatever the case was, only two out of the seven of us on the clock were truly excited to be in the presence of this legendary figure in HipHop and all around stage performance. The majority of the crew seemed more intrigued by the fact that Halle Berry was sitting in the passenger seat of his shiny black Escalade, waiting for him out in the parking lot. Yes, Heavy was rolling with Halle.
The man was as nice as any celebrity, or for that matter any customer that I came across in my eleven months there, could possibly be. I was always entertained by Heavy, especially by the fact that in his prime he was not a small man but ripped a stage like no one before or after him. He had a combination of rapping and dancing that was uniquely his own. But after seeing him in person, his down to earth demeanor combined with a nonchalant approach to buying out the store and what we could come to find out was his courting of Ms. Berry, he won me over for eternity. He was simply the man from there on out.
Not even a month ago I tuned into the BET HipHop Awards to see what the kids are into these days. I wasn't impressed by much of anything other then a slimmed down Heavy D straight up showing these youngsters how to command a stage. On that night I tweeted "If Heavy D isn't trending, he should be".
I'm sure he'll be trending tonight, unfortunately it's for the worst of reasons.
Dwight Arrington Myers
May 24th, 1967 - November 8th, 2011
