Quan was born Dequantes Devontay Lamar and grew up in East Atlanta. He was a fan of James Patterson Alex Cross books, and I grew up as a star center fielder, which I always thought was cool, because you don't hear much about black studs in baseball anymore. He told Rawiya Kameir in 2015, “I was playing from 14 to 18 – like, I was really good at it. I was Mr. Baseball my freshman year. We were good and had great talent. I don't want to say it's a white sport now, but it is. I feel like a lot of us [Black players] they get overlooked, but that's the way it goes, though.” Quan said he turned down an opportunity to play in college and ended up hanging around Atlanta where he was sent to jail on burglary charges, where he began writing poetry that later turned into music. Combining seamlessly rapping and singing, he would go on to be one of the faces of one of Atlanta's greatest eras, the twisted and wild and flamboyant early 2010s—an era that lives on in my mind as the image of Quan's arm wrapped around Thug, medals on his chains the size of a hockey puck, in the video for “Lifestyle.”
Not long after Tha Tour Pt. 1Quan and Thug drifted apart for reasons that were never made entirely clear. A joint tour for the mixtape never materialized. Soon enough, Quan receded into the background. The reasons for the accusations were Molly's addiction, Atlanta street politics and record label issues, exacerbated by a leaked song from the Rich Gang sessions where Quan referred to what sounded like rape: “I don't want your ho, I just want that cookie from her/She tried to resist so I took it from her/How can you say no?/You mustn't know who I am.” He later apologized for the lines, but they always stuck with him.
He's had a few hit-or-miss comeback projects, namely the emotionally resonant ones Rich in spirit, which has its moments. And, even though he was out of the limelight, I never thought of Quan as an artifact of the World Star era. It always felt like every day the the new Rich Homie Quan song would pop up on my Instagram feed and blast out every speaker again like nothing happened. This is how things were supposed to turn out. Preferably side by side with Thug. They would eventually go on that tour, arms locked, matching designer clothes, Birdman in shades with eye tags. It probably never would have happened, but that didn't stop me from dreaming of that Hollywood ending. Rarely does rap experience this.
