Photo: Al Pereira(Getty Images)
The tragedy of the rap genre is that it lost most of its best artists long before their time was due, at the pinnacle of their careers. Eric Lynn Wright, or Eazy E as he is commonly known, is one of the most notable such persons. Unlike Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. who were shot dead, it’s not that well-known how did Eazy E die as it wasn’t such a dramatic, violent death.
Before we get into exactly how did Eazy E die, a few lines about the remarkable man he was.
Eazy was a rapper from Compton, one that embodied the gangsta rap era as he sold drugs before going into music and his lyrics evoked that time heavily. Fittingly, he made a couple of gangsta rap anthems that will forever be a part of his legacy. The legacy which started by being one of the founding members of the legendary rap group – N.W.A.. Which alone would be alone for the rap hall of fame, but Eazy was the only group member that had a strong solo career while the group was still together. Eazy-Duz-It (1988) studio album and 5150: Home 4 tha Sick (1992) and It’s On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa (1993) extended plays were released during his lifetime alongside four N.W.A. albums.
How Did Eazy E Die?
After the breakup of N.W.A., on February 25, 1995, Eazy was admitted into a hospital for what was thought was asthma-related coughing problems. Instead, Eric Wright was diagnosed with AIDS. Less than a month from when he announced his illness through a public statement. Surprisingly enough, he died just a month after founding out he had the disease, on March 26, 1995, from complications of AIDS. He was 30 years old at the time.
He was buried in a gold casket, and instead of wearing the traditional suit, he was dressed in flannel shirt, a Compton hat and jeans.
The question is, who gave Eazy E AIDS? The common belief is that Eazy caught AIDS from sexual intercourse, but the question remains the same. And this is a difficult question to answer, just ask yourself who gave you the mono when you were younger, or maybe the flu. It’s about the same for a celebrity male who was known as a womanizer. Proven. As it is recorded that Eazy E has 7 kids with six different women.
Eazy E Death Conspiracy
Since the story of how Eazy E died is quite peculiar, as only a month passed since the diagnose was established, while Magic Johnson has AIDS since 1991 and is still alive. There were a lot of conspiracy theories on how Eazy E died and why.
The main one is that the government poisoned him because his lyrics were too influential in the wrong kind of way. A lot has been said about the use of acupuncture needles as the weapon of choice, through which AIDS was given to Easy during his motorcycle crash incident few months before his death.
But on the other hand, biologist say that these needles don’t penetrate the skin enough to spread AIDS, especially so strong version. And the quick death argument can be disputed by just reminding people that it was just a month since the disease was diagnosed, which doesn’t mean that it wasn’t picked up even years before.
The second biggest conspiracy is that Suge Knight, the famed rap manager with whom Eazy E had disputes, poisoned Eazy with an AIDS injection. A more plausible version technically, but one without any concrete evidence as well.
Although, it’s worth noting that Eazy’s daughter Ebie is trying to fund a documentary movie which will shed light on his death as there are some uneasy facts about it. Mostly that Easy married Tomica Woods twelve days before his death and that an attorney who was with him for just two months was in charge of his will. Which ended up leaving most of his wealth, and Eazy was estimated at $50 million, to Woods, alongside Eazy’s label, Ruthless Record.
Tomica, on the other hand, produced the successful Straight Outta Compton (2015) movie which was dedicated to the memory of Eazy E.
So we may never know for certain how did Eazy E die, but we can still honor the man that he was by rocking his best songs while cruising down the street.
