Children of Rap
When you hear that a famous musician has kids, you have to wonder: What was it like growing up in that house? We talked to the progeny of rap legends like Ol’ Dirty Bastard and the Notorious B.I.G. about summer vacations with Usher, seeing your dad on the cover of tabloids, and getting your deceased father’s cane back from the LAPD
Riding the Coaster With O.D.B. The Three Kids of Ol’ Dirty Bastard
Taniqua Jones
DOB 4/23/88
HOMETOWN Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
CALLING Craft specialist for the disabled; cast member, Growing Up Hip Hop New York; co-director of the estate of Russell Jones (otherwise known as O.D.B.)
Barsun Jones
a.k.a. Young Dirty Bastard
DOB 4/9/89 HOMETOWN Bed-Stuy CALLING Entrepreneur
Shaquita Jones
DOB 3/11/92
HOMETOWN Bed-Stuy CALLING Mother; DeVry MBA student; co-director of the estate of Russell Jones THE MOMENT THEY KNEW THEIR DAD WAS FAMOUS “He came to my classroom because I was bad in school,” Barsun says. “He was supposed to set me right, but as soon as he came, teachers started acting different and classmates started participating in his celebrity. So now being bad for me was good: He was in the room.” O.D.B.’S FAVORITE ROLLER COASTER
“He would take us to Six Flags all the time,” says Taniqua, “and Coney Island. He loved the Cyclone. He was always just our daddy. He was famous, but he never changed for nobody. He never faked the funk.”
THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING YOUNG DIRTY BASTARD “For me,” Barsun says, “having O.D.B. as a pops was real hard. People thought I was rich, and I was not — when he got locked up, we wasn’t really making too much money. I was never rich until I made myself rich.”
KEEPING THE LOVE ALIVE “After my father passed,” says Taniqua, “I was 16, and Method Man brought me onstage. He said, ‘This is Taniqua, O.D.B.’s firstborn seed.’ Everybody in the crowd went crazy, and I just started crying to see how much love people had for my father. You couldn’t even see how many people held up their W’s out of respect for him.”
THE O.D.B. LEGACY “People see this crazy person on TV,” says Taniqua, who manages the O.D.B. estate with Shaquita. “People don’t know he’s my father and tell me he was a crack addict. We want people to know what he brought to Wu-Tang. We organized a concert last year for his birthday — oh, my God, you never realize how much it takes. But next, we’re trying to set up a tour.”