PHILADELPHIA — In 2005, Beanie Sigel was the unmistakable face of Philly rap.
With fiery visitor verses on Jay-Z and Scarface album cuts, and two critically acclaimed LPs, the menacing, hard-nosed lyricist had sprung to rap stardom and was shaking up Philly summer time block events with “Roc the Mic.”
The Broad Road Bully grew to become the de facto chief of the State Property supergroup, which spawned the careers of fellow Philly spitters like Freeway, Peedi Peedi, and the Younger Gunz. The collective expanded to a clothes line and a movie sequence.
Sigel cashed in on that momentum and launched his third album, “The B.Coming,” 20 years in the past in 2005, and it stays his crowning achievement.
However there have been no launch events. Whereas the album peaked at No. 3 on Billboard and bought north of 130,000 models within the first week, Sigel was incarcerated in a federal jail in South Jersey. “I wasn’t Beanie Sigel then,” the rapper instructed The Inquirer in a 2007 interview. “I was 57613-066.”
He watched the video of his lead single, “Feel It in the Air,” for the primary time from jail. “I couldn’t tour on that album or do nothing,” he mentioned.
The South Philly native, born Dwight Grant and nicknamed Beanie by his grandmother Margaret Grant, was arrested on gun and drug prices stemming from a 2003 Philadelphia visitors cease, the place he threw a .45-caliber pistol out of his Cadillac Escalade.
He was sentenced to at least one 12 months and a day in jail, which delayed the unique October 2004 launch date for “The B.Coming” below Roc-A-Fella Data. Its eventual March 29, 2005, launch was amid the disbandment of the music label, with heightened tensions amongst co-founders Jay-Z, Damon “Dame” Sprint, and Kareem “Biggs” Burke.
It was Sigel’s first album in 4 years, but when he had had it his manner, the album would have launched even later.
“I actually wanted ‘The B.Coming’ release date to be the same day I got released out of prison,” Sigel mentioned in a January 2025 interview with The Artwork of Dialogue. “They put out ‘Feel It in the Air,’ and three months later, I’m walking [to my prison tier] and see the video. And then they tell me they put the album out.”
“The B.Coming” didn’t salvage Sprint’s label, however the challenge grew to become a cult basic that highlighted Sigel’s snarling supply, lyrical depth, and tales about his upbringing in South Philly’s Drug Row.
“I come from South Philly,” Sigel mentioned in a 2023 interview with Brooklyn rapper Papoose. “You had to say what you mean, and mean what you say. Watch your mouth, only talk when being spoken to … You had to know the rules, you couldn’t guess them.”
The sluggish burn “Feel It in the Air,” produced by Heavy D, depicted a person overwhelmed by the looming presence of highly effective unseen forces. In Sigel’s case, it was his run-ins with regulation enforcement. He turns his concern and suspicion right into a lyrical efficiency that mirrored the Geto Boyz’s iconic tune, “Mind Playing Tricks on Me.”
“Ready to go bananas/ Two vests on me, two TECs, extra clips one me/ I know my mind ain’t playing tricks on me,” he rapped.
Sigel’s vulnerability continues to peek by way of “The B.Coming.” On “I Can’t Go on This Way,” he talks of his actions threatening the well-being of these closest to him.
“My baby mama give me drama on the daily/ Like she making it barely, and my kids is eating rarely,” he rapped.
He addresses his failed romantic relationships on “Bread & Butter,” his substance abuse and household dysfunction on “Look at Me Now,” and the unrelenting objective to by no means return to a lifetime of battle on “Wanted (On the Run).”
There’s a jolt of optimism with “One Shot Deal,” and he even tries a pop-ish monitor with the Neptunes and Snoop Dogg-assisted, “Don’t Stop.” He shifts from somber and mournful tracks like “Change” and “Lord Have Mercy,” to bangers like “Flatline,” that includes Peedi Peedi.
“The B.Coming” stays one among Sigel’s masterworks. It was a challenge that sustained his buzz lengthy after his launch from jail within the fall of 2005.
Going to jail “was a good thing for me at the time,” he mentioned to The Inquirer two years later. “Just to be away. Ever since I got signed in 1998, I was just always going, going, going. I never had the chance to be normal, even for a second.”
The final twenty years haven’t been too form to Sigel. After arrests in 2005 and 2006, a 2015 taking pictures left him and not using a lung and the booming voice he possessed as a younger, fiery emcee. His final mainstream launch was 2012’s “This Time.”
However there have been hints at a comeback. He celebrated his fiftieth birthday and the twenty fifth anniversary of “The Truth” on the Met in March 2024, and was seen in a viral video working at his Seize & Roll, Wings & Bowls meals truck at 2400 Passyunk Ave. It serves cheesesteaks, rooster wings, fried seafood, and desserts. Some are even named after his lyrics.
He additionally seems to be again within the studio. A video surfaced of him taking part in new music, utilizing AI-technology to duplicate his outdated, resonant voice.
“I want to get off that bad-guy thing,” Sigel mentioned in 2007.
Whereas there’s no set date on the upcoming launch, the return of one among Philly’s most prolific emcees could possibly be the start of the redemptive path he rapped about again in 2005.
