While the world mourns the passing of DMX another rap star from that era appears to also be struggling with his health.
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Black Rob, the Bad Boy star who ruled the streets in 2000 with the massive hit “Woah!” was recorded by Power 105.1’s DJ Self in his hospital bed. Although it was hard to hear him in his weakened state, the rapper extended his condolences to DMX and his family after his passing on Friday.
“I feel everything about X,” Rob says in the brief IG video. “X was positive. Love to X.”
The post said: “Let keep our prayers up Black Rob !!! Get well man Please people out there take care of yourself BR was one of the greats Had NY on his back like Whaooo.”
Rob, born Robert Ross, is the Harlem-born rapper who was signed to Bad Boy and released his debut Life Story in 1999. Although the album sold more than a million copies and his hit single “Whoa!” became an instant classic upon its release in 2000, his future projects didn’t attain the same success.
While specifics of his medical condition were not released, Rob did tell Sway Calloway of Sway in the Morning in 2015 that he’d suffered a stroke that year due to high blood pressure.
“It ain’t no drugs, I’ll tell you that,” he told Calloway in the interview. “I had high blood pressure and being that I had that, that takes a lot out of a brotha.”
Rob said that he was able to repair his body and health by letting go of drinking, exercising, and by changing his diet.
“I had a stroke, but I got over that,” he said but revealed he was also taking 10 pills a day to keep his condition under control.
Per Complex, former Hot 97 music director Karlie Hustle said she was “distressed” by the video but hoped that seeing Rob’s health struggle might help others recognize that illness is something that many contend with.
“The Black Rob hospital video is distressing, but I believe it’s important to normalize seeing sick people out in the open,” she wrote on Twitter. “Sick people are people. The human experience is fragile. We should not disappear our ill brethren because we find discomfort in our own mortality.”
No one from Rob’s camp has yet responded to the video.
Check out Black Rob’s “Woah!” below:
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