Rest In Peace
1987 - 2014
Before Stephen Crocker’s vision for Lovelorn Records came into being he made this statement (while previously signed with a local label) that is clearly foretelling of why exactly he would choose the name Lovelorn when creating his own label, “You choose not to go the way of the trend of what sells, you’re beating your head against the wall. I beat my head against the wall every God damn day. I make no money. My label makes no money… I know they didn’t sign me thinking they were going to make money (2012)”.
The Merriam-Webster definition of Lovelorn is, “unhappy because of love, feeling love for someone who does not feel the same way (2015)”. This reveals the bold statement Crocker was making in choosing to name his record label Lovelorn Records. Hip-hop was the love of Stephen’s life and he was determined to stay true to its heart and history, regardless of the chances of financial gain or widespread popularity. We all met Crocker and became involved with LVLRN in different ways, but one story remains the same for all of us. Crocker nurtured, pushed, and motivated the artist in each of us. He constantly tried with all of his might to help us see that the lovelorn artists inside each of us deserved to be set free with unabashed abandon. So Lovelorn has come to have double meaning to all of us in that way. Crocker perhaps unknowingly was gathering the truly Lovelorn.
We lost Crocker in December 2014. He was who brought us together and kept us together. He was our glue, and the loss of him has turned that glue to cement, forever bonded through love, music, heartbreak, and healing. To honor his legacy we support each other; we keep performing and creating even though it drives us crazy sometimes. We all, like Stephen, have an inner need to make music beyond attention or money. We go crazier when we are not creating than when we all overextend ourselves just so it can have a place in our lives, a place that creates a peace inside us we cannot get otherwise. I’m not speaking for everyone when I say we’re crazy…I’m sure there are at least a few sane people on this label. I can’t think of them off the top of my head, but I’m sure of it. What I know is we work hard, play hard, love hard, and create without holding back.
If Stephen were alive today, he’d most definitely be our most controversial artist. I mean dude was always talking about his disdain for whitey, though he’s Caucasian (reference to Catharsis, 2012). When your other passions and obsessions besides hip-hop are history, religion, and politics there’s no way to avoid being controversial, so we guess Crock figured he might as well just go full tilt. We listen to his raps and imagine that he could only expect a small number of people to understand his references even fifty percent of the time. He hoped the rest of us would go look things up and learn something! And he was undeniably unafraid to piss anyone off within his art.
There is no one like Crocker and never will be. We are lucky to have known the man, and we are grateful to have such a body of work to share of his. He was constantly recording, releasing, documenting, and archiving his experience and our music. He is very much alive in his work, and we hope that those of you who are unfamiliar with it will be curious to listen to our “Favorite Rapper’s Favorite Cracker” (Crocker), the man who gathered us together, who is with us every time we laugh, every time we cypher, every time we write or create, and every time we gather, Stephen Crocker.