1. Heavy D
Heavy D would be my number one, rest in peace. Living Large would be the first or second album I actually bought. Heavy D’s whole existence was a huge influence on my career. When I was working with Dave Kelly, he’d tell me stories of back in the day when Heavy would do all the dancehall stuff and conversations they’d have, working with everybody from Buju to Super Cat. Heavy was one of the greats, but aside from that he was a great person. His legacy is untouchable. Above everybody, I respect him the most because he did it with positivity and his whole rep, everything, is clean from top to bottom. That to me is way bigger than anybody that sold 10 million albums. Even though in 2012, there’s only a portion of people who understand how important and influential Heavy D’s career was.
That was a tough one because me and Heavy just started becoming close, as he passed. We had met once or twice over the years before but we had actually started to become bredren. The last text I have in my phone from Heavy is one saying, “Kardi, I want to executive produce your album.” And I was like,”cool just link up and see wahgwaan.” That was a couple weeks before he passed.