NEW YORK (AP) — The body of rapper ODB returned Thursday to the borough of his youth as family and friends, including Grammy-winning singer Mariah Carey and fellow Wu-Tang Clan member Method Man, gathered for a Brooklyn funeral remembering one of hip-hop's most original characters.
Mariah Carey pauses by the casket of ODB,
whom she collaborated with on her single Fantasy.
By Bebeto Matthews, AP
Carey, who collaborated with Ol' Dirty Bastard on a remix of her hit Fantasy, wore sunglasses and a black outfit as she walked to his casket during a wake before the service. Carey stopped to study a collage of pictures featuring the hip-hop star.
ODB, whose real name was Russell Jones, collapsed and died Saturday inside a Manhattan recording studio. The cause remained undetermined, but the 35-year-old co-founder of the seminal rap group Wu-Tang Clan had struggled with drug and alcohol addiction.
Family members mingled outside the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn before entering the church, where the late rapper's body lay inside a half-open casket bestrewn with flowers. More than a dozen standing floral arrangements flanked the casket.
Among the early arrivals for the wake was fan Gary Harrington, 35, of Brooklyn.
"He was just a natural," Harrington said. "He wasn't a phony. He was a natural man."
One day earlier, a wake for fans in Harlem was held at a church there.
Jones' troubled life landed him in jail for drug possession and escaping from a rehabilitation clinic. He had just finished his prison term a few months before his death.
