Fans Pay Respects to Rapper O.D.B.
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Fans of the rapper O.D.B., who died suddenly in a Manhattan recording studio last week at age 35, were given a chance to pay their respects yesterday during a public viewing at St. James Presbyterian Church in Harlem.
The performer, whose real name was Russell Jones, was a member of Wu-Tang Clan, a Staten Island-based rap group popular in the 1990s.
About 100 people waited in line behind metal barricades before being admitted around 3:25 p.m., once the family had entered the church. After the first wave of visitors passed through, a trickle of people continued to arrive, but the police officers outnumbered the mourners.
The first few viewers walked away nodding to each other, seeming satisfied that it was truly O.D.B. lying in the coffin. The rapper was laid out in a bright white, mandarin-collar suit, with a blood-red handkerchief poking out of the breast pocket.
Outside the church, several visitors had stories about O.D.B.’s having gone out of his way to do favors for fans. A 24-year-old fan from Harlem, Steven Tittley, said his mother saw O.D.B. in a restaurant a few years ago and, knowing her son was a devoted fan, called to tell him about the sighting. She asked the rapper to say hello to him and O.D.B. came to the phone and talked for a while. “That’s the type of person he was. He cared about his fans,” Mr. Tittley said.
His fans cared about him, too. Several people remarked that it was a shame O.D.B. died so young, when things were starting to come together for him.
“He just got out of jail and seemed like he was going in the right direction,” a 35-year-old from Harlem, Shermaine Williams, said.