Detroit rapper Bo$$ has died at age 54. Bo$$ was the first woman to be signed to Def Jam West. DJ Quik discovered her after she relocated to Los Angeles after high school and put her on “Mai Sista Izza Bitch” with AMG. Russell Simmons heard the song and signed Bo$$ to a deal with Def Jam West. Her 1993 debut album Born Gangstaz produced two number-one rap hits “Deeper” and “Recipe Of A Hoe.” Bo$$ had the image of a rough street dweller but her album’s intro revealed her middle-class origins that included a Catholic School education, ballet, and piano classes. In 1993, there were no other women rappers posing with guns and wearing straitjackets in their videos. Simmons and his marketing team had crafted Bo$$ into the first woman gangsta rapper. Fans did not care that the image was false because Bo$$’s rap skills and charisma in front of the camera sold the show. AMG, MC Serch, Jam Master Jay, and Erick Sermon were amongst the producers who made Born Gangstaz a classic. DJ Premier posted to Instagram to give his condolences and he revealed that they did a remix of “Deeper” that was never released.
She relocated to Houston, Texas in the mid ’90s to work with rapper Ricardo Royal aka Coco Budda and they had a personal relationship that produced a son. Def Jam rejected the demos she recorded and dropped her from the label. She spent the rest of the ’90s working as a radio DJ with a hip-hop show on KKDA-FM. By the end of the ’90s she was battling kidney failure and her relationship with Royal ended. In 2001, she worked on Krayzie Bone’s Thug On Da Line album. She released her Six Million Dollar mixtape in 2004. Her health issues escalated in 2011 and she reached out to the Facebook community for a kidney donor. In 2017, she had a stroke and by 2021 a GoFundMe was created to help pay for a medical procedure. The fundraiser surpassed the $15,000 goal. Bun B posted about Bo$$’s passing on his Instagram page and Jermaine Dupri, 9th Wonder, The D.O.C., Mia X, Chuck D, and Slim Thug left comments. Any woman rapper who has rapped about the violent aspects of streetlife has some kind of direct or indirect link back to Bo$$.
