With DJ Mister Cee’s death, hip-hop mourns the loss of an irreplaceable titan

DJ Mister Cee, the legendary New York City DJ who played an integral role in the careers of rap luminaries like Big Daddy Kane and the Notorious B.I.G., died Wednesday. He was 57.

Condolences poured in across social media from fans and friends, such Kane, 50 Cent, Chuck D, Lil’ Cease, DJ Premier, and writer Cheo Hodari Coker. Many of the tributes centered on the same theme: Mister Cee’s love for hip-hop culture knew no bounds. Cee, a hip-hop pioneer in every sense of the title, was a walking, safe space. Not just for the rappers or executives he met and worked alongside over the years. He was like that with so many he encountered.

“[Cee] was one of my favorite music encyclopedias. It was an absolute blessing to learn from him. He handled hip-hop with such care and deep love,” said Scottie Beam, a former Hot 97 digital producer who worked closely with Cee as he unleashed his legendary noon throwback mixes. “He always wanted to see the right people in his hip-hop domain. [Cee’s] impact, passion and work that he’s poured into this culture will never, ever be forgotten, and I will miss him dearly.”

You can’t tell the story of hip-hop without mentioning Mister Cee’s name. Born Calvin Lebrun in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Cee was the first person I spoke to for the book, It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him. Shortly after the quarantine started, a sense of trepidation sat on my shoulders. Here I was writing a book on one of Cee’s closest friends, and he could’ve been skeptical or guarded. Given where the world was at that point, it would’ve been understandable. I expected the interview to last 30 minutes. We spoke for three hours.

During our conversation, Mister Cee looked back on his life. He came of age in Brooklyn’s Lafayette Gardens projects in the 1970s, at a time when drugs were flooding the city. Some chose street life. Cee chose music. He laughed while recalling the freestyle rap battles in the lunchroom of Sarah J. Hale High School in the early 1980s. He cracked up even harder, recalling himself jumping in the ciphers but using lines from his posse at the time — The Magnum Force Crew. Cee’s laughs turned into tears of joy as he talked about his last opponent ever, MC Kane.

“After the lunch period was over, I’m walking out and this guy walked up to me with a leather jacket looking like Kurtis Blow. The guy walks up to me and goes in his inside pocket in his leather jacket — keep in mind, we in high school now — and pulls out a microphone. He was like, ‘Yo, I heard you wanted to battle me. I’m MC Kane,’ ” Cee told me, struggling to get through the story because he couldn’t contain his laughter. “I thought the dude was nuts! I’m like, ‘Nah, I was using my crew rhymes.’ I started backing down! I was like, I don’t want no problems. In my mind, I was like this dude is nuts carrying a microphone in school.”

He continued, “A week or two later, I go back in the lunchroom, and there’s a big crowd around a table. It was that MC Kane dude again,” After lunch, Cee asked Kane to listen to him DJ and join his crew. Kane initially refused, saying he was a solo act. “So I said, listen, just come around my way, hear how I DJ and maybe you might reconsider. Sure enough, Kane came around to my projects in Bed-Stuy. He heard how I DJ’d, and he was like, ‘Yo, I’m down. Whatever you wanna do, I’ll get down with the crew.’ “

From there, an unbreakable bond was formed as MC Kane became Big Daddy Kane. Cee and Kane would later meet Biz Markie, who helped facilitate a deal for the two at Cold Chillin’ Records. Mister Cee spoke with great pride and reverence for people like DJ 50 Grand, the Notorious B.I.G. and Matteo “Matty C” Capoluongo, whose “Unsigned Hype” Source column caught the eye of Sean “Puffy” Combs. Cee remembered introducing Biggie to Puffy as if it happened five minutes before our convo began, not three decades earlier. And the same confidence Kane had in Cee, Biggie had in Cee, too.

“Whatever Cee say, man,’ ” Biggie told Combs after the then-upstart music executive mentioned a deal with Uptown Records. “Whatever Cee say.”

Cee laughed as he looked back on helping convince Biggie to record songs like “Juicy” and “Big Poppa” for Ready to Die, an album in which he served as executive producer. He cried, reminiscing when Biggie lent him money to settle a deep debt with his landlord. He was still frustrated at Biggie for throwing his wife, Faith Evans, under the bus on the classic rap duet “Brooklyn’s Finest” with Jay-Z. And he went silent for minutes, recalling the days, weeks and months following Biggie’s murder in March 1997.

The conversation was expansive, but what I took away the most was Mister Cee’s gratitude. He understood his place in hip-hop but would always reflect on the culture’s place in his life, too. Cee is responsible for a handful of rap’s most significant street scriptures, from Biggie’s demo tape that Cee polished and placed in the right hands, the classic Best of Method Man and Best of Notorious B.I.G. tapes, to his own mixes that have since become part of the city’s cultural identity, no different than graffiti in the subways or block parties on warm summer nights. 

“[Mister] Cee’s influence stretched far beyond the airwaves, shaping the very fabric of NYC’s DJ culture,” Hot 97 shared in a statement. Cee worked at the station for 21 years before his departure in 2014. “Our hearts are heavy as we send our love and condolences to his family and the fans whose lives he touched through his music.”

Perhaps the word most used to describe him is “friend.” Beyond all the good he provided in the music world over five decades, Cee found immortality in his character, whether he knew it or not. He was always willing to share knowledge and always willing to tell his stories because he knew that specific acts of kindness meant something to people. He listened as much as he talked — and gave even more love than was given to him. It’s impossible to reflect on his life and not remember how, in later years, some aspects of the culture weren’t as gracious to Cee, especially when his sexuality became a heated topic of discussion.

The proverbial bullets Cee took about his personal life, especially after he was arrested for soliciting trans sex workers, served as teachable moments for the culture, which didn’t exactly acquit itself honorably at the time. J. Cole referenced the situation in 2013’s “Forbidden Fruit,” rapping, “The same reason they call Mister Cee ‘The Finisher’/ Forbidden fruit, watch for the Adam’s apple/ What you eat don’t make me sh—/ And who you f— don’t make me c—.“ The ugliest vitriol came from Power 105 radio host Charlamagne Tha God, who repeatedly taunted Mister Cee, calling him a “serial purchaser of penis” on air. Cee watched as his character was put under a microscope, and he was pressured to explain his sexuality. (In 2021, Mister Cee said he considered himself “try-sexual.”) Still, despite the culture’s latent homophobia, people like Funkmaster Flex and 50 Cent rushed to Cee’s defense.

The controversy around Mister Cee’s sexuality could’ve ended his career, but it didn’t. The culture eventually fell in line or moved on to the next target. But Mister Cee was more than just a hip-hop savant. He was a hip-hop survivor. In the wake of his death, the genre must once again ask itself why it’s necessary to make survivors out of anyone, particularly people who offered the culture-at-large so much life?

Mister Cee was a tour de force, the likes of which the genre has rarely seen. One that combined God-given talent with heavenly-ordained altruism. One that, when the culture lost a titan, was always there to send them off to the pearly gates in style. No one lauded his peers quite like Mister Cee.

Cee told me the story about the day Biggie died. He’d gotten the phone call hours earlier and sat in a haze as he took a taxi to Hot 97’s studio. Five years earlier, Cee convinced Biggie to take rapping seriously and leave hustling alone. Now, he was staring at the reality of living without the young man who changed his life. When he entered Hot 97’s office, Angie Martinez was already crying. His tears started instantly. Somehow, they got through the day — one of the darkest in New York City’s musical history — because they felt they owed the city that much. After the news of Cee’s death broke, Martinez took to Instagram with a heavy heart yet again.

“Oh, Cee, I’m struggling to find the words. You were so good at this … NO ONE will ever do it better,” she wrote on Instagram. “I have so many memories of how [you] showed up for me throughout the years. So many healthy debates. So many brainstorms and meaningful conversations. So much love. So much history. I’m grateful for all of it and for [you]. I pray [you] are at peace my friend.”

Fifty-seven is still painfully young in life’s grand scheme, and Cee is yet another member of the hip-hop community who never reached senior citizenship. But Mister Cee somehow packaged moments, relationships and art that will last longer than his physical frame ever could. Perhaps therein lies the joy inside the grief. DJ Mister Cee lived a hip-hop life worthy of re-telling for generations to come.