2B
Wears a Chicago (NL) hat.
WS MVP award. Top 20 all-time in HR, Hits, RBI, Runs, SB.
Erick Sermon, for those who don't know (the old guys, the hip-hop avoiders) made his name as half (along with Parrish Smith) of EPMD, a group that released 6 albums between 1988 and 1999, all of which had the word "business" in the title. A confession, before I continue - I don't like EPMD that much.
If Public Enemy was The Clash of late-80's hip-hop (a huge oversimplification, but I'm using this comparison for the sake of making a point) then EPMD was The Sex Pistols. Whereas PE directed their (considerable) anger upwards at the power structure, and downwards at the apathy of the young and the black, EPMD mostly focused their anger in a parallel direction, at everyone else in hip-hop. This isn't entirely accurate - PE was legitimately angry at, well, pretty much everything, whereas EPMD were more of a party band that happened to like to take shots at other rappers. But the nastiness of some of their tracks is pretty much unavoidable, and even though it's easy to appreciate their rhymes and their wide array of samples, it's hard to listen to their albums without wanting to tell them to tone it down, or direct it at someone who deserves it.
Anyway, Erick Sermon has continued to rap and produce without his former partner, who is probably dead*, but as with all other musicians who leave a well-regarded band for a solo career, has so far been unable to duplicate the critical or commercial success of the heyday of EPMD.
* This may be a completely untrue statement.
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