As many of you may or may not know, iconic underground rapper Robert Alan Diaz, b.k.a. Pumpkinhead passed away on Tuesday, June 9th.
The Park Slope, Brooklyn emcee was a staple amongst the underground during the late 90s/early 2000s – back when Rawkus still had a firm grip on the indie game. Although my knowledge on the brother’s music is slim at best, I will always remember listening to Jean Grae’s “Code Red” featuring Block McCloud and when I got to Pumpkinhead’s verse, I had that scrunched up face and had to rewind his verse a few times.
DJ Eclipse and his Halftime Show crew linked up with Squeeze Radio (@Sucio Smash and Big Zoo) for a tribute show which brought out a host of contemporaries, friends and fellow icons/legends. In E’s words:
On Tuesday June 9th Robert Diaz aka Pumpkinhead (or PH) passed away. It was a shock for the whole NYC underground scene and I immediately knew I had to do some kind of tribute show. I took time to gather music (i.e. digitize, clean, edit, etc) and started to reach out to those that were closest to him and set a date for the show. The last Wednesday of the month is when I give my time slot to Sucio Smash so he can do his Squeeze Radio show. I told him we needed to do a joint show and pay our respects to PH to which he responded “let’s do it”. So Big Zoo and Sucio held down the mics while I rocked the tables. The actual music played ended up being minimal compared to what I prepared, but more importantly and enlightening were the stories from our guests Marco Polo, GMS, Blitzkrieg, Immortal Technique, PackFM, Tonedeff, Mr. Met, Mr. Mecc, Poison Pen, Keith WildChild, Nems, Claudia and Pumpkin’s wife Shawntay. For anyone interested in more information on PH….this show is for you.
In case the above embed doesn’t work (stop using Internet Explorer and/or AOL you f*cking dinosaurs), here’s a direct link to the streaming page on Podomatic.
Up top is a flier for a fundraising event in memory of PH going down in Brooklyn, with live DJ sets from Tony Touch, Butta L, Sucio Smash, Eclipse and more. All proceeds go to the Robert “PH” Diaz Memorial fund. Rest In POWER, PH.