Jimmy “Super Rhymes” Spicer, whose 15-minute single “Adventure of Super Rhymes” is widely considered hip-hop’s first storytelling rap, died from cancer in 2019 in financial peril. As Russell Simmons’s flagship artist at Rush Management, Spicer helped lay the foundation for what would eventually become Def Jam Recordings. His music has been sampled by the Wu-Tang Clan, 2Pac, De La Soul, and Busta Rhymes. LL COOL J credits Spicer with inspiring him to rap. Still, the ailing emcee was forced to start a GoFundMe campaign in order to pay for his medical bills. He didn’t make it to his 62nd birthday.
The Paid in Full Foundation (PIFF), founded by philanthropists Ben and Felicia Horowitz in 2022, hopes to eradicate stories like Spicer’s one hip-hop legend at a time through its grant-making program.
On October 18, the nonprofit held its third annual Hip Hop Grandmaster Awards gala at the Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, where Kool G Rap and Brand Nubian’s Grand Puba were awarded life-changing money. They joined past recipients of the Hip Hop Grandmaster Award, Roxanne Shanté, Rakim, Grandmaster Caz, Geto Boys’ Scarface, and Kool Moe Dee, visionaries who blazed a trail for others to follow but weren’t compensated properly due to shady record contracts and/or poor business management.
With Dr. Dre, Nas, Quincy Jones III, Babyface, Ludacris, and other industry giants looking on, Kool G Rap humbly exclaimed, “It’s the biggest honor I could have ever imagined.”
And the gala continues to grow bigger and better every year. For the 2025 iteration, PIFF introduced The Quincy Jones Award, which was presented to Parliament-Funkadelic’s George Clinton.
“It’s definitely changed my life for the better,” Grandmaster Caz tells SPIN. “The award is granted to artists to continue their artistic contribution to the culture and those who pretty much didn’t get their proper due during the heyday and exploitation of the culture. It’s very necessary for artists like myself to receive this award from the Paid in Full Foundation to further our careers and to show that there are people out there who do care and respect our contributions.”
Other honorees included fellow hip-hop luminaries The Fat Boys’ Kool Rock Ski and Whodini’s Jalil, who both received the new Contributor Award.
“It’s crazy when you think about Ben and Felicia doing this, because BET ain’t gonna do it, MTV ain’t gonna do it,” Kool Rock Ski says. “It’s truly a godsend. When you think about hip-hop and where it came from, so many people made so much money off the artists, while they were getting peanuts. To see what Paid in Full is doing is beautiful to witness.”
