Big L

Lamont Coleman, known to the world as Big L, was born on the thirtieth of May 1974 in Harlem, New York City, the third and youngest child raised by his mother, Gilda Terry, after his father, Charles Davis, departed during his childhood. Growing up around 139th Street and Lenox Avenue in uptown Harlem, the boy his family called "Little L" and "Mont-Mont" came of age amid both the hardship and the vibrant creativity of his neighborhood.

By his early teens Coleman had fallen in love with hip-hop, sharpening his gift on the corners of Harlem through relentless freestyling. In the summer of 1990 he met the respected rapper Lord Finesse at a record-store signing on 125th Street, a meeting that opened his path into the wider scene. In 1993 he helped found the Harlem group Children of the Corn alongside future stars, and his reputation as a lyricist grew swiftly.

Signed to Columbia Records, Big L released his debut album, Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous, in March 1995. Praised for dazzling wordplay and a dense, inventive command of language, he earned lasting admiration from critics and peers alike. After parting with Columbia in 1996, he founded his own imprint, Flamboyant Entertainment, and was poised to sign with Roc-A-Fella Records.

On the fifteenth of February 1999, Coleman was fatally shot near his childhood home in Harlem; he was twenty-four. Though gone far too soon, his artistry endures, and in 2022 an intersection in his beloved Harlem was co-named in his honor. May the craftsman of words be remembered with the dignity his gift deserved.