In waking up this morning excited about today’s election as well as waiting to hear some feedback on the joint we just leaked, the last thing I thought I would hear about is the passing on of a friend.

Last night Binkis Recs lost one of its family members – the talented, charismatic emcee by the name of Jax. This was a kat who loved life, his family, loved to laugh and had a true passion and a gift for hip-hop music. I had to pleasure of meeting the brotha via my man DJ Jon Doe of Prophetix back in 2002. Jax left about a 2-minute extra-enthusiastic voicemail on my phone praising some of the music that he heard from me beginning with his famous, “Zo Boogie! This is Jax kiiiiiiid.” It was actually a message that I saved for a while after that because it was the first time I had ever heard someone get that excited about any works that I had done. I called him back soon after and we were cool ever since.

We got to kick it only a few times over the years, mostly down in Atlanta and another time in Detroit when he, Phife, Rasta Root and Slick-N-Rose were all in town to record (see pic above). But every time we were in contact, whether it was via phone or IM, he was the same ole animated, high-energy, good-natured dude. Our conversations sometimes seemed like a comedic battle or joke crackin’ and witty one-liners (he always got me on those though). Jax was just a genuine brotha overall – full of positive energy and we will all miss that. Although we only worked on one joint together (“Limitless” from his Sharper Images album), there was always a mutual respect we held for each other’s music and plans to work on some more in the future. I actually just learned from his wife Lisa that they planned to use “When Everything Is New” as the intro to their official wedding ceremony that was to take place on the 22nd of this month. And that’s the kind of guy he was right there…I will be thinking about that for a long time to come.

Zo