Blu is as skilled as any rapper out today. I often think that folks en masse won’t fully appreciate what he contributes to the art of MCing till he’s through. I met him through an interview back in 2006. Fate and circumstance have crossed our paths several times since.

We were actually roommates for a small stretch of 2009. One day, inside a modest two-story home atop Mount Washitaw in Los Angeles, we were going through the few crate of records I owned. I pulled out the European bootleg to Bilal’s Love For Sale I bought at Poo Bah Records a few months prior.

“Daaamn, G! how much you want for this?”

I didn’t know what to answer. I loved that album too much to price it. Then a lightbulb went off, “I’ll trade you.”

“Trade me what?”

“A song. I’ll give you the record and you let me put out a song of yours.”

Blu laughed, gave me a pound and without a word took the record into his room downstairs next to the garage.”