Sean Price

Sean Price led New York’s golden age ethos into the 21st century, but before that, he was Ruck, half of the duo Heltah Skeltah. The group’s mid-’90s run helped cement Brooklyn’s Boot Camp Clik crew as stewards of hard-nosed street rap that wasn’t interested in bling or mob fables. On Heltah’s first two albums, 1996’s Nocturnal and 1998’s Magnum Force, Price plays a deadpan foil to Jahmal “Rock” Bush’s wild flows—on their single “Therapy”, the calm psychoanalyst to Rock’s violence-crazed crook. When Price reemerged, after a half-decade away from the game, on the 2004 mixtape Donkey Sean Jr., recording under the name he was given at birth in 1972, his personality took center stage. His voice was deeper; his writing was funnier and more efficient. His debut solo album, 2005’s Monkey Barz, is a minor classic of punchlines about things like punching dudes in the face (“Onion Head”). That work and its follow-ups made Price an underground hero, enlivening traditionalist styles with charisma and comic aggression. Price died, at 43, in 2015; his posthumous album Imperius Rex (2017) shows he was still at the height of his powers.