ODB's Mother Pens Letter On Anniversary of Rapper's Death

Yesterday marked the fourth anniversary of the death of Wu-Tang rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard. To mark the occasion, his mother Cherry Jones penned a letter complaining about her son's posthumous treatment and hinting that next year will bring ODB's final album. "Four years ago today marks one of the most tragic days in my life when I lost my son Rusty whom many of you know as Ol' Dirty Bastard. For the past four years I have sat back and watched certain individuals try and tarnish my sons beliefs," Jones writes. She goes on to accuse ODB's widow of taking out loans against his estate, taking money from his other children and blocking the release of his final album.

Additionally, Jones also railed against the author of a recent unauthorized ODB biography and lawyer Robert Shapiro, who briefly defended Dirty. "I hope next year my son's final album will be released for the 5th Anniversary of his passing. It pains me to have to write this on the day of his passing but I needed to address this," Jones writes. "I know my son would have been at that rally in Chicago when the first African American President was elected and I'm sure he would have gone up on stage and grabbed the microphone as only he could."

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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