The Big Ced Chronicles

http://rockacandy.com/blog/2009/01/the-big-ced-chronicles/

He mentions it often, but honestly I never really paid it much attention - that is, until I saw it up close and personal on cable late one night. Sure, the signs were everywhere - like that time his image showed up magically alongside some hip hop greats in a D-Nice clipped gallery, or how he strangely knows every ol’ skool rapper within a 25 mile radius of Manhattan - but who really reads signs?

Of course I’m talking about Big Ced of The Industry Cosign, and a former editor for hip hop titles like Blaze and The Source. The dude’s been telling me (and anyone within earshot) he’s hip hop royalty for years, but in NYC every third person screams some title or another, so it’s hard to know when to believe.

One late night tryst with VH1-Soul yielded something otherworldly - a familiar face as Mc Lyte’s man in her classic clip for the single “Paper Thin.” Upon close inspection it was Ced starring as Lyte’s trifling lover that she finds hugged up with two other chicks on the subway somewhere in 80’s NYC. When it clicked that Ced was the visualization of the tragic mack Lyte’s rapping about, I was stuck.

MC Lyte |MTV Music

By the end of the vid, I was on the phone calling head’s about the clip, browsers all over Brooklyn were searching youtube. But it wasn’t until someone pointed me in the direction of a video I’d seen countless times as a teenager, that the true conversion occurred - Monie Love’s, “Monie In The Middle.”

Monie Love |MTV Music

Yup, that’s him, all up in the middle with Monie - the dude with the nerd glasses. It turns out Ced actually is hip hop, the evidence was glaring. He was a pivotal part of a musical iconoclast - the female rapper which doesn’t even exist today.

But what makes Ced’s contribution truly noteworthy is that he’s actually America’s first male video ho - and that’s truly gangsta.