Big L is shot and killed in Harlem

Why it matters

Lamont Coleman, who recorded as Big L, was shot to death on West 139th Street in Harlem on February 15, 1999. He was 24. He was hit nine times, mostly in the face and head. A childhood friend named Gerard Woodley was arrested but released without charge. The case has never been formally solved. Big L was, by the time of his death, on a contractual short list of the most technically gifted MCs in New York. He had a debut album (Lifestylez ov da Poor and Dangerous, 1995) that had not sold commercially but was reverentially admired by other MCs. He had a freestyle reputation that put him in the top tier of late-90s underground lyricists. He had been close to signing with Roc-A-Fella when he was killed; the deal would have made him Jay-Z's labelmate. Most catastrophic-young-artist stories in rap are about the music we did not get. Big L's is one of the most acute. The two posthumous studio albums (The Big Picture, Return of the Devil's Son) hint at the writer he was about to become. You can hear what he was. You cannot hear what he was about to be.