RIP Tommy Gunn

Thomas Rollins, the lyricist known as Tommy Gunn, Megalon, or sometimes, Black Geezus, passed away last month. Honor his legacy with a GoFundMe donation. The following words hardly begin to pay tribute to his genius. 

Competitively speaking, just on some rap shit, if King Geedorah isn't your favorite Monsta Island Czar, Megalon probably should be. He rapped his fucking ass off. There's really no other way to describe it. I mean listen to "One in a Million." He was that, rarer now if you consider they don't make 'em like [him] no more. The only Monsta Island Czar other than DOOM and Grimm to drop a record on Fondle 'Em, Megalon may also be the only rapper other than DOOM with a Subroc production credit in his catalog (a story for another day, perhaps). 

If you've never listened to A Penny For Your Thoughts, you need to stop reading this and go do that. Less well known is its follow-up, The Nickle Bag, which came out on Backwoodz in 2008 and was posted here back in 2015. Even less known is that he claimed to have written lyrics for 10 other albums, "the 5 cent, 10 cent, 25cent, 50cent, $1.00, $5.00, $10.00, $20.00, $50.00 and the $100.00 dollar bill albums," as he told UG Rap. He also told them, "It’s hard for a fake MC to concentrate on doing music, but for a true poet and true b-boy it’s never a problem. Never! It’s just like breathing." He definitely made it sound that way, breathless even. 

As I said from the beginning, I don't really have the words. So, Here's some music. 

"Keep It Street" was credited to Megalon, likely because it dropped around the time the Monsta Island Czars concept was coming into being, but you can tell it was a Tommy Gunn song from the backup vocals. The song first appeared on Web D's On The Ropes Soundtrack. The next joint, brought to you by the good folks at GrandGood, features Gunn rapping alongside the Hempstead rapper Trife, a late affiliate of Roc Marciano not to be confused with the Theodore Unit member. After that is a short playlist I made of three tracks Gunn did for Backwoodz Studioz, none of which appear on The Nickle Bag. Two feature billy woods, one comes from Vordul's sophomore record, and the first is a freestyle over Three Six Mafia's "Stay Fly" beat. 

R.I.P. Tommy Gunn. Rap has been missing him. Now, Long Beach, NY, and the world do, too.