When it’s all over, surveying the carnage and devastation left in Thought’s wake, Flex throws down the gauntlet, emphasising that Thought performed this magic trick in one take. It’s a reminder that the BX kid born just before the dawn of rap is still, to his core, a lover of the artform and its most skilled practitioners. “For y’all cornball n*ggas coming up here doing 50 takes?” Flex says. “You just saw what it’s supposed to be.”
2. The 2Pac Controversy
NEW YORK – JULY 23: Rappers Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G. aka Biggie Smalls (Christoper Wallace) and Puff Daddy (sean Combes) perform onstage at the Palladium on July 23, 1993 in New York, New York. (Photo by Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)Al Pereira/Getty Images
Flex had many beefs over the years—with artists, with record executives, with fellow DJs. But perhaps his most infamous feud, and the one most representative of his consequences be damned truth telling, is his ongoing squabble with a fallen rapper who’s beyond reproach in the eyes of his legion of stans.
Funkmaster Flex is from New York, and like all New Yorkers he loved The Notorious B.I.G.—he was one of the first DJs to interview Biggie, alongside Craig Mack in 1994, and was devastated when Big was murdered at 24, as we all were. It’s become fashionable to write off those twin killings as a circumstance that simply happened, a Shakespearean tragedy that couldn’t be helped, in part because that narrative leaves the legacies of both artists intact and unblemished.
But Flex has brought up the beef between the two former friends several times over the years, never backing down from his contention that 2Pac was either mistaken (or simply lied) about being robbed and shot by Biggie and co-conspirators at Quad Studio on November 30th, 1994, the canon event that led to the feud and its deadly consequences. But Flex doesn’t stop there; he’s referred to Pac as “Cheddar Bob”, outright blaming 2Pac’s words for getting Biggie killed, and refuses to bite his tongue and bow out of the debate when Pac fans complain about needlessly opening old wounds. Agree or disagree, Flex will have none of it, keeping it real on air and off, as was so often the case, which is why we love him.
1. “Otis” premiere, July 20, 2011
Of course, there’s only one number-one answer here. The true remember-where-you-were moment, one of the most definitive instances of the power of the radio personality even in a post-iTunes era. Watch the Throne’s “Otis” is classic in its own right, of course, but can you imagine it being debuted any other way? Has there ever been a better example of unbridled enthusiasm crossing the valley from annoying to endearingly infectious? Has any writer, poet, personality, whatever, ever communicated a sentence greater than “Put your hand in the register, that money is yours” since? I realized just how powerful and cross-cultural this moment has become when I saw it all over my feed celebrating Zohran, from folks who are definitely not of this hip-hop shit. Flex may not be retiring just yet, but his jersey is already in the rafters. Our money is your money, Funkmaster.
