I Miss Her

I got to doing work and needed some tunes to listen to so I picked a name out of the sky. My brain landed on Phyllis Hyman. I can remember almost crashing into a rock wall in Philadelphia when we found out that she committed suicide. My friend Dana and I were hanging out riding around Philly visiting her cousins being carefree teenagers. We had Power 99 on and they were playing ALL of Phyllis' hits we were jamming. But we realized that it was back to back so we figured it was her birthday or something until a solemn voice came across the airwaves and said the Phyllis Hyman was morte. Dana was driving her reaction was to just stare at the radio as I did. Her eyes were off the rode and the wall was fast approaching.


The fact that Phyllis was a Philly girl made me fall in love with her. I guess that was a girl crush. Just knowing that she was across the bridge somewhere was an inspiration to me. Kinda like a hometown hero. Philly was just a hop... forget the skip and the jump. It was right there. I thought she was gorgeous. She made me proud to be tall and her stage presence was confident and I admired that. There aren't many artists like Phyllis. No one can touch her. Her vocal styling was extraordinary. Chills take over to this day when Old Friend comes on. My mother mentioned that when I was a child we were in Philly and saw her in the park. I said "Mommy THAT's PHYLLIS HYMAN!" I was of course enamored we went up to her and she said "Hi". That was my only interaction with her but to me it makes her ever apart of my life.


I can not help but wonder what she would be doing and saying now had she not taken her own life. When I look at some of her performances from the past a few artists doing their thing now come to mind Navasha Daya of Fertile Ground, Maimounna Yousef and Jazmine Sullivan. They are all singers who make it seem effortless like Phyllis did.

She is surely missed by me and I just had to say that.