The most ethereal, unquantifiable, and unteachable quality a recording artist can possess is *cool.* You know, that supernatural mix of cultural precognition, absolute confidence, and utter nonchalance that congeal into an inescapable magnetism. You either have it or you don’t.

Tame One of The Artifacts had it. The Newark, New Jersey rapper, who passed away Sunday night from an apparent cardiac arrest at the far too young age of 52, was, for lack of a more elegant descriptor, cool as fuck.

Whether we’re talking about the pocket he found (and floated in) on beats or the way his jeans hit his Timbs or the effortlessness of his graffiti handstyles or how his M-65 jacket perfectly hugged his hoodie or how leaned his Wayfarers, or, or, or…the list goes on. Tame One, born Raheem Brown, just oozed—not unlike the leaky Uniwides his group would be so closely associated with—a casual charisma whose influence belied his sales or spins. The Artifacts were graffiti-writing Last of the Mohicans whose music celebrated hip-hop’s core trope of competitive creativity with outlaw, teenaged enthusiasm.

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