Camu Tao: remembering one year on

Shockingly, it's now been a year¹ without redoubtable producer/MC/singer/Jukie Camu Tao. i'm sure my feelings on hearing the news of his death, a couple of days after my birthday, coming completely out of leftfield — cancer? 31 years old? dead? There must be some mistake. — are shared by a lot of Jux fans.

Camu's Jux labelmates, including Aes Rock, Cage, and El-P have also been remembering, posting brief anniversary reminiscences on the Jux webpage. Aesop talks about a horrific/hilarious-sounding album the two of them improvised one night (and has even uploaded one track to his MySpace). The most affecting, though, is from El, who describes how, even when Camu had hardly any time left, he was still hatching schemes to get his beefing comrades to patch it up.

It brought a lump to throat, and also really made me wish i'd met Camu in person, however briefly. Read the story about the table and you'll see what i mean.

The 2dopeboyz blog has put up a commemorative mixtape to mark the anniversary; its twenty tracks ably illustrate the talent he took with him. R.I.P Camu.

¹ More like a year and a week, actually, cuz of my trademark lazy slag tardiness.