So many wild and…interesting things I could say about the clock-wearing, silver-toothed Flavor Flav. I spent much of my youth watching his absurd reality tv show Flavor of Love, and to this day that is still how I remember him. But he was very prolific in the rap world in his prime. On one of the episodes of his show, he had a group of his rapper friends show up to his house to “test the waters” with the new ladies who came in to fight for the wildcard’s love. G-Unit showed up, and I remember thinking at the time, who are these guys? But they were the kings of rap, long before I would ever listen to anything like that, and learning their evolution has been ever so fascinating.

Flavor Flav has the iconic clock, as well as the Katt Williams’ velvet-wearing, pimp-suit look. The best way I could think to describe him would be, “ridiculous,” but in the best possible way. He was just that, but so much more, as he and his many rapper friends paved the way for much of the music my friends and I enjoy today.