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While I was browsing through some of the internet hiphop websites, I came across a number of different articles dedicated to Stack Bundles, the Dipset member who was senselessly gunned down in front of his own home in Far Rockaway Queens last week.  Through all of the tributes and remembrance articles, something struck me, a thought and feeling that comes to me quite often when these types of events happen.  Why, and only after his death, is the general public, not those close to him, but the regular hiphop listeners such as myself, praising Stack Bundles and beginning to catch on to his music now?

As long as I can remember as being a hiphop listener, I never had a conversation about Stack Bundles.  I've discussed everything hiphop related ranging from KRS One to the Shop Boyz, from Jay-Z to Camp Lo, from Jim Jones to Tru Life, but never have I ever come across a discussion regarding Stack.  Not only that, as I visited one of the major hiphop websites (I'll keep the name anonymous), I read in their forums area, a comment that was particular interesting.  A member had stated : "RIP Stack, you will be missed, Ima make sure I cop that next album."  Hmmmmm, next album?  And as recently as yesterday, mister "Baallinnn" himself, Jim Jones explained that "We gonna put out a bomb ass Stack Bundles album."  Okay, Stack's been in the game now for damn near 5 years, and never have we heard about any albums, projects, features, nothing.  Now that Stack is dead, everyone is coming out ready to support the MC?

By no means am I bashing Stack Bundles as an artist, he's appeared on countless Desert Storm mixtapes with DJ Clue, and a few Dipset mixtape joints, but it just seems that artists that haven't blown to the success level of say a 50 Cent, benefit only after their death.  Anyone remember Big L?  The up and coming NY MC who was gunned down in the same manner in front of his home in 1999? 

Even during that time, I remember the amount of support Big L received from the larger hiphop community, and rightfully so.  But up until that time, the average hiphop listener didn't even know who he was.  Before his murder, Big L had only released one official album, "Lifestyles of da Poor & Dangerous.  The album did so poorly that Columbia records was forced to drop Big L from the label, leaving the Harlem MC without a label, forced to appear on endless freestyle tracks and mixtape joints.  Fast forward to 1999 at the time of his murder. 

Those who knew Big L were rightful, in every sense, to praise and honor such a tragic loss of life, but what about the general public?  Who was really checkin' for Big L outside of New York City?  And 1 year later, in August of 2000, Big L's last album "The Big Picture," a collection of work the MC was working on before his death, was officially released, and only took less than a year (March 2001) to be certified platinum.  Less than a year, and Big L sold 1 million + albums.  Did it really take his death to make the general public understand why L was one of the best MC's to ever touch the mic?

When an artist is gunned down and murdered in the prime of their lives, it seems that people catch on to their music at a much faster pace than when the artist was actually alive.  There is something about an artist being murdered that catches our attention, it may not necessarily be about the music, but there is something about an MC being murdered that makes us want to get closer to them, and get closer to their music.  Would there be a Stack Bundles album on the shelves if Stack wasn't murdered?  Would Big L have gone platinum in such a short time had he not been gunned down?  These are questions we may never know the answer to, but one thing is for certain.  When MC's are gunned down and lost to this tragic cycle on violence and nonsense, the general public catches on, and when we catch on, it turns a relatively unknown MC into a legend.  Go Figure.