In general, it is pretty difficult to get me to feel nostalgic for things that happened after I graduated college. My 20s, for all their excitement and over-the-topness, are one big blur of noise, brunch, and credit card debt. But there is just the tiniest section of my heart, a roped-off VIP section, where I feel the pangs of youth pull at me. And more often than not, it is triggered whenever I revisit what I believe to be the best rap project of the 2010s.
I am sure if either Young Thug or Rich Homie Quan had been confronted with such a statement, they wouldn't take it seriously. Rich Gang: Tha Tour Pt. 1 was, if not necessarily a throwaway project, certainly a trifle. A concoction of Brian "Baby" Williams a.k.a. Birdman, back when he was interested in signing both artists. Two friends, still pretty early in their careers making their still-raw music together. The best song to come out of their collaboration—"Lifestyle," one of the best songs of that decade—isn't even on the mixtape. But regardless of intent, the Rich Gang tape stands out because of the chemistry of the two rappers, Thug and Quan, who were as simpatico as Andre 3000 and Big Boi. Thug's irascible inscrutability gelled perfectly with Quan's raspy falsetto and melodic rapping. Thug was the jazz and Quan was the funk.
Rich Homie Quan died Thursday, at only 34 years old. He deserved better, in every way. As brief as his time under the brightest spotlights was, Quan was a true, natural star. It's evident on his first big record "Type Of Way," where his gravelly voice brought grit and texture to his hard raps while the harmonies he inflected them with gave them character and soul. His voice was fragile and aggressive at once—a perfectly harmonized contradiction unlike anything else in music. His mixtapes were appointment listening, his guest features were standouts, and in Young Thug he found an ideal collaborator to heighten his best attributes.
Unfortunately, 2013-15 couldn't last forever. The music business is too cruel and unforgiving. Thug and Quan fell out, the details of which don't make much difference. As Thug's star continued to rise, he left Quan, and really everyone else, far behind. Quan kept making good records, but he never again got back to where he had been with Thug, on top of the world. He struggled—with the industry and with drugs, on and off, throughout the last decade. And now he's gone.
Rap has consistently depressed me for what seems like five years now. Every generation deals with its own "hip-hop is dead" period, but that doesn't necessarily mean that some things worthy of mourning haven't actually been lost along the way. For my generation it's that there are no more stars, that the once ever-evolving genre has stagnated, that the rap middle class has been hollowed out. But most concerning is how nearly an entire generation of potential or former rap stars have died way before their time: Pop Smoke, Nipsey Hussle, Takeoff, Mac Miller, Lil Keed, Juice Wrld, Young Dolph, XXXTentacion, Fredo Santana, King Von, Lil Peep, Drakeo The Ruler. Young Thug has been in jail for a year. Pooh Sheisty is in prison. 03 Greedo spent an extensive amount of time in prison. Tay-K is probably going to be in prison for the rest of his life. Even Quan, who at a decade in could've been an OG, never got to scratch at his full potential. And that's hardly a full list. So many leading lights either extinguished or locked away.
I hate nostalgia's preciousness, its romanticization of our own lives and youths as refracted through the lens of pop culture. Rich Homie Quan didn't need to be the next Gucci Mane, but he deserved more than to be a footnote in Atlanta rap history during the 2010s. He was special. What we're left with are hundreds of brilliant but fleeting records of that specialness. That body of work is a blessing for the art form, and the best we can offer his memory in return is to cherish it, even if the exchange will never feel like a fair one.
