With the news about the death of rapper Craig Mack, one of Diddy's first signees to his then brand new Bad Boy Records, friends, fellow rappers, and fans alike are mourning the rap pioneer in their own ways.
Fred Blankenship and Mark Arum, newscasters at WSB-TV Atlanta, paid tribute to the rapper by adding their own spin on their regular morning broadcast, weaving in classic lines from both the original and remix versions of his 1994 hit "Flava In Ya Ear." Desk anchor Blankenship threw to the meteorologist saying she had "the data to turn your body into antimatter," before eventually passing it to traffic reporter Arum who he called the "Craig Mack of the morning commute, kicking that brand new flava in your ear."
While describing some heavy traffic as "everlasting like the toe on pro keds" and "madder than the mad hatter," Arum dropped a few more Mack references of his own before throwing back to the news desk. This is far from the first time the duo have injected a bit of hip-hop into their morning show, having paid tribute to 2Pac on what would have been his 47th birthday, the Notorious B.I.G. on his would-be born day, and Phife Dawg shortly after his tragic passing in 2016. It's more than obvious that apart from loving the culture, both see how valuable it can be to fit it into spaces you expect it the least.
Mack dropped his debut album Project: Funk Da World in 1994, and the remix version of one of its tracks "Flava In Ya Ear" arguably helped catapult Bad Boy Records to the top of rap's mid-'90s food chain as the label's first official release.
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