Our thoughts are with rapper Leslie “Freeway” Pridgen, as the beloved MC from Philadelphia is mourning the loss of his 21-year-old daughter, Harmony, following her battle with cancer.
He shared the heartbreaking news on Instagram over the weekend, with a video of his daughter dancing to “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)” by the Jackson 5.
“You know the saying sugar and spice and everything nice, well that’s my Harmony! ❤️ I promise y’all she was the sweetest most kind most caring generous loving adorable person I know. Allah Really blessed me putting her in my life. I love her so much and this hurts so bad,” he wrote, noting that the video was taken on her 21st birthday back in February.
“Even though she was fighting cancer she was always happy and always smiling and she always brightened up my day. The only thing that’s giving me comfort is I know 100% that she believes in Allah and she was a good person. I truly believe she has everything it takes to enter into heaven. 🤲🏾🙏🏾❤️ Please keep her in your prayers & please ask God to show her comfort and mercy. Listen Life & Death is very real! cherish your love ones & keep them close to you because you never know, we are not promised our next breath. She truly was my best friend and I don’t know what I’m gonna do this pain is unimaginable.”
While it’s unclear what kind of cancer she had, Harmony was diagnosed in September of 2020. In January he asked for prayers as she faced the battle head on.
“I Need everyone to keep my daughter FTA Harmony in y’all prayers while we rumble this cancer sh-t,” he wrote.
She would go on to have a tumor on her spine removed, and though doctors thought she wouldn’t be able to walk again, she did.
Still, Harmony passed on Oct. 23, leaving a “big hole” in the heart of her father.
The hole is a significantly large one as the loss comes a year after the rapper buried his son, Jihad Pridgen. The 20-year-old was an aspiring rapper who died of accidental drug intoxication. A month after his son’s death, Freeway said he was coping by leaning on his faith.
“It’s like what I told you about Islam and about God,” he told fellow rapper Jeezy on The (Re)Cession podcast. “Without that, I don’t know where I would be at right now. But my faith in God and my understanding in God really got me through.”
The 42-year-old was recently facing his own health struggles, being diagnosed with kidney failure in 2015. After more than three years of waiting, he was finally able to get a transplant in 2019.
Best known for rapping with State Property in the early ’00s alongside Jay-Z as part of Roc-a-Fella Records, Freeway is a celebrated rapper, particularly in Philadelphia. But as he noted last year, being a dad to Harmony and Jihad, his two children, was and is “definitely the biggest accomplishment that I achieved.”
