News broke yesterday of the rapper Boss‘s passing. While her career may have seemed brief, I feel like I witnessed much of it unfold in real time. One of her most recognized tracks, “Deeper,” wasn’t an immediate favorite of mine, but it remained a fixture on the 1993 TV show music video countdowns. Her album, Born Gangstaz, also released that year, and it wasn’t bad.
In 1994, an interview with The Wall Street Journal revealed a surprising aspect of Boss’s background—she had a middle-class upbringing and attended Catholic private school. All of this contrasted with her gangster persona in her music, seemed to mark the end of her rap career, as she faded from the spotlight. (She did have an older song featured on the TV show Orange Is the New Black for some reason).
But then I remembered there was a Boss song I liked a lot. She was featured on Spice 1‘s “Don’t Ring The Alarm (The Heist).” This was one of those songs that somehow got lost to memory, but I used to play it in my bedroom a lot. Listening to it now brings back a lot of memories. The song is still hard, and I still believe everything Boss raps here (“And I’m thinkin’ to do them niggas ‘fore them motherfuckers do me in”).
R.I.P. BO$$