Patrick Swayze was more than a giant-headed actor who knew how to dance. He was, in an interesting way, a hip-hop icon.
In the early ’90s, his name itself became a popular slang term meaning “leaving,” or “gone,” or “departed” or “ghost,” which brings us to the etymological root, the hit 1990 movie Ghost, in which he starred with Demi Moore. (You remember the potter’s wheel scene, though you probably don’t want to.) The word showed up in lots of lyrics (most often rhymed with “crazy.”) Ivan at Hip Hop Is Read made a nice list of citations.
One favorite is from the rapper Big Noyd, guesting on Mobb Deep’s indomitable 1995 classic “Right Back at You”: “Slow down baby/He said, ‘What you tryna’ play me?/You must be crazy’/Pulled out the heat and almost blazed me/Then he was swayze/The shot must have dazed me/Thug’s sellin’ drugs, bustin’ slugs, but he ain’t crazy.”
Strangely, speaking of Mobb Deep, one half the Queens duo, the producer and MC Havoc, released a new video on the day of Swayze’s passing. “Letter to P,” it’s called, an “I-miss-you” ode over an elegiac Delfonics sample. The “P” stands for Prodigy, Havoc’s partner, who’s currently serving three-and-a-half years in prison on a weapons charge. But for a minute, you could think it was for Patrick.
