The towering legacy of William ‘Big Skyscraper’ Richardson 

On “614EVA,” one of the last songs William “Big Scrape” Richardson recorded prior to his early September death at age 42, the Columbus rapper reminisces about his years coming up in the city’s hip-hop scene, bringing listeners along for the ride as he ciphers with Copywrite and takes bus trips to New York City to track alongside friend and fellow musician Wise from Ohio.

More than an open-hearted homage to days gone by, the soulful track, produced by Jack “Tha Audio Unit” Burton, serves as a broader love letter to the artform. “One thing about music, it hits your soul,” Scrape raps, a beat later adding, “Forever, I’m not letting you go.”

In a September interview, Burton said the pair recorded the song three times – the second time because the producer lost one of the files and the final time because Scrape wanted to try the track at a different tempo and switch up the intro, adding a dedication to Denise Walls, who served as a key player in the city’s music scene prior to her August death.

Even at the time, Burton said the song felt different coming from Scrape, who in recent months had started making posts to social media, crediting fellow musicians for their contributions to the form and giving props to those who had helped him along the way. “He was on Instagram giving everyone their flowers,” said Burton, who added the currently unreleased track is certain to surface at some point in the near future. “And the song felt very different. I’m going to describe it like this: I knew he had a lot of health problems, but it felt like he knew.”

A similar haunted feeling struck the rapper Wise when he first spun “614EVA.” “My eyes kind of watered,” he said, “because it had that vibe … where it sounded like he knew it was his last record.”

Rapper Ty Willis first met Scrape – then performing under the name Big Skyscraper owing to both his height and heft – around 2002, recalling him as a gentle giant whose nature ran counter to his physically dominating presence. “I was happy, because he was the first person I met who I felt small around,” Wills said, and laughed. “And then, man, he always had that flow, that stage presence.”

Both Wise and Burton shared a similar perspective. “You felt that humble presence through and through,” said Wise, who compared Scrape to the Notorious B.I.G., owing to his effortlessly smooth cadence and his predilection for telling street-level stories deeply rooted in the challenges he experienced throughout his life, including a stretch when he lived as an unhoused single father for a stint. “And even through that, he never changed who he was, period. Scrape was always Scrape. He didn’t live in his problems. He might have been going through it, but he still had love for everybody.”

Not that Scrape couldn’t exude a bulletproof confidence. He titled one album My Pen Deserves a Grammy and early on stepped fearlessly into the lyrical ring with Copywrite at a point in time when the emcee was operating at the height of his battle rap powers. The two squared off in front of a large, rowdy audience during the Jay-Z and 50 Cent concert at Newport Music Hall on Sept. 14, 2001, having won the opportunity after emerging from an earlier competition at the King Arts Complex that included finalists Wise and the group Basic Element, members from which would later form Fly Union.

“And it was like, ‘Oh, God,’ because at that time Scrape was just coming up and Copywrite was already Copywrite. I mean, he was the battle rapper. He was Eminem to us before there was an Eminem,” Wise said. “But Scrape didn’t know any of that, and he was like, ‘Man, I’m going to eat that white boy alive.”

On this occasion, at least, Wise said the confidence proved unearned, recalling how Copywrite countered Scrape’s line about “eating this cracker with peanut butter and jelly” by referencing the Sept. 11 attacks that had taken place just days prior. “And Copywrite comes back with this whole 9/11, crashing-the-tower theme, talking about him being the Big Skyscraper,” Wise said. “And it was like, ‘Man, he devoured you.’”

There were points in Scrape’s career when he flirted with a larger breakthrough. He once recorded a mixtape with DJ Envy, but the project was marred by the famed producer’s insistence at shouting out track titles incorrectly throughout. “And if you asked Scrape what project he’d want you to check out, he would probably say that, because that was his moment,” Wise said. “But that wasn’t the DJ’s moment; that was the DJ’s check.”

Even so, Scrape shines on the project, his verses resonating with a humanity that those interviewed described as a hallmark of his work. Every bar Scrape rapped felt genuine, Burton said, with his words carrying the weight of his experiences in a way that listeners could virtually stand in his large shoes. “Mind keep telling me that death is around the corner/Playing tricks/Telling me I’m a failure/So call the coroner,” Scrape raps on “Lost to Found,” from 2013. “Suicide notes/This world is a fucking joke/My whole family broke/So fuck telling me about some hope.” 

And yet, even this low proves temporary, and within a few bars Scrape is again spitting about standing as tall as a Titan, reminding himself of the need to stay strong. “Even when he was at his bottom,” Wise said, “he was able to set aside his issues and his hurts and be a light to other people.”

R&B singer Qamil Wright witnessed this transformative light firsthand, having collaborated with Scrape on the song “Lil Black Boy,” a hope-filled anthem born of the 2020 Black lives matter protests. “The way he delivered his music, you could tell it was purpose driven,” she said. “He had something to say, and he was going to make sure you understood every word of it.”

Multiple people interviewed said that they witnessed a softening take place in Scrape’s later-career music, with the rapper shedding some of the youthful bravado and displaying more of his vulnerabilities. “When you’re 20, 25, you’re just trying to be the hardest rapper out,” Wills said. “And when you get into your 30s, you gain this perspective. I mean, life changes, right? I hope we ain’t talking about the same stuff we were talking about 20 years ago.”

Some of these changes were apparent outward, too, with Scrape dedicating himself to the gym and shedding the bulk of the weight from which his stage name was first derived. Wills recalled watching videos of Scrape exercising alongside his kids. And when Wise viewed the casket at the funeral following the rapper’s Sept. 8 death, he initially wondered how his friend could even fit inside of it, his memories still dominated by Scrape’s once outsized physical presence. “In the end, he couldn’t be Big Scrape no more,” Wise said. “He was Skinny Scrape.”

And yet, everyone interviewed described Scrape’s impact as massive – on the city’s hip-hop scene, of course, but especially on his sons.

“He tried his best to make sure they were not just great kids, but that they knew they could be better than he was,” Wise said. “And maybe that sounds weird to say, but I think that’s the goal for most parents. We don’t want our kids to be us, to make the same mistakes. I want you to be better than me. I believe in myself and the sky’s the limit, but I want you to know there is no limit. And I know he pushed his kids to believe they could be anything. And even if you fail, I love you and I’m going to keep supporting you. … And I don’t think his kids will let that go. I think they’ll hold everything that he gave them.”