Afew months before his death,Craig Mackwas finally ready to talk.
Mack was sick, although he did his best to hide it.
A chunky knit sweater added bulk to his diminishing frame.
Craig Mack,Sean Combs, Notorious B.I.G., and Heavy D in Los Angeles in 1995.Ted Dayton/Jan Jarecki/Donato Sardella/WWD/Penske Media/Getty Images
Its hard to watch, his daughter Amanda tellsRolling Stoneof viewing the footage.I could tell something was very wrong.
This subdued Mack was far from the loud and rambunctious 24-year-old who radiated confidence in the summer of 1994.
Mack, with his neatly cropped Afro and signature Ha!
He was the first artist of many who limped away from Combs demoralized, destitute, and feeling duped.
Some left the music industry altogether.
A few, like Shyne, Loon, and Mase, turned to politics or religion.
Mackdied in March 2018 the words Praise the Lord!
areinscribed on his headstone.
That transition was just so abrupt, Amanda says.
Something had to have happened.
We were like, Oh, my God!
says Jean Nelson, Macks first co-manager and early hype man.
They knew the beat was a pathway to a hit.
Nelson laughs thinking back on that moment.
Craigs always the guy if everybody goes right, hes gonna go left, he explains.
From the minute the beat dropped, it was danceable.
Hot 97 put the song into power rotation.The Sourcefeatured a verse in its massively influential Hip-Hop Quotables section.
The song stayed a then-record 14 weeks at the No.
1 slot onBillboards Hot Rap Songsand went certified-platinum after four months.
I just knew how talented this kid was and how much further he could go, Nelson says.
But he got in his own way because of the way he thinks.
I think thats what tailspun him into all of the other different events that he ended up in.
This quest for survival.
He mainly supported his family through royalties that trickled in from Flava in Ya Ear.
Still feel like I got used.
It was as if the past decade had never happened and Mack was at a breaking point.
Lord, I dont want to do this, Mack says he prayed.
It wasnt unusual for Mack to pray.
His Christian faith was a constant throughout his life.
I never met anybody musically in hip-hop like that to dedicate a song to God.
Maybe that was a profound moment in the back of his head this whole time.
Behind the wheel of that car, Mack says he begged God for guidance.
It was in his heart to kill the unnamed man who was after him, he said.
I knew that it was God talking to me, Mack explained.
Was it related to Macks unsuccessful attempt to regroup with Bad Boy around that time?
Prone to keeping secrets, could Mack have been mixed up with someone no one knew?
Did the person even exist?
Several are dubious if Macks come-to-Jesus moment in the car happened at all.
During Macks time at Bad Boy, he seemed to grow out of it.
He didnt have to lie anymore, the source says.
But did it come back?
When times were hard, did he turn into the person who was telling stories again?
You never know with Craig, Nelson says of Mack constantly changing his motivation and beliefs.
He was so unpredictable in life.
No one was more aware of Macks slippery nature than his first wife, Roxanne Alexis Hill-Johnson.
This is not an interview Hill-Johnson is eager to be giving.
This man was my everything, she tellsRolling Stoneat the close of seven hours.
I loved the ground Craig walked on.
Mack was instantly likable vibrant, passionate, witty, and charismatic, Hill-Johnson and several others say.
He could have been the mayor of the city, Johns says.
Macks neighborhood pals included hip-hop peers Biz Markie and EPMDs Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith.
Craig was very smart, Andrew says.
Honestly, I think he was a little bit too smart for his own good.
He also was an impressive drawer.
(His creativity is something that his children Amanda and Asah would inherit.
Mack was stubborn and could be a somewhat unreliable narrator, several say.
But his Achilles heel was making sudden, inexplicable choices.
A lot of bad decisions in his life, Insinna says.
He was his own worst enemy.
I want to marry this man.
At the time, Hill-Johnson viewed Macks behavior as spontaneous.
Now she sees how the rapper fluctuated between extremes.
I didnt see that [side to him] until we got married, Hill-Johnson says.
Craig got blackballed for not listening to Diddy, Johns says.
For not following that madmans path.
Combs and Mack clashed creatively and personality-wise.
When we walk in, Craig bust[s] out laughing.
Mack began to rib Combs, who wasnt amused.
The look on Puffs face, Le Gendre said.
I was like, He dont like this.
That was the beginning of [when] we start to see things turn.
He spoke to Puffy directly about shit he didnt like, Insinna explains.
Craig didnt fall for that shit … and that put him in a bad position.
Married and with a baby on the way, Mack was in a rocky financial situation.
Hired cars were swapped for subway rides where Mack worried people would recognize him.
Things became so dire that Mack once asked Combs for cash at an event.
Secretly, Mack had already hatched his own contingency plan.
Despite Insinnas warnings, Mack was holding meetings with Death Row boss Suge Knight.
Knight was scheming on opening an East Coast division of Death Row and wanted Mack as his first artist.
(Knight did not reply to a request to speak for this article.)
But word got back to Bad Boy, who had us by the short hairs, Insinna says.
He was scared, Hill-Johnson says.
From what I understand, Puff was enraged.
Macks music career would take a nosedive.
Puffy became a vindictive bastard and really stuck it to him for doing that, Insinna says.
While Mr. Combs brought him many opportunities and encouraged him, their creative differences led them to part ways.
We wished him nothing but the best, and he was unrestricted in pursuing all opportunities.
Ill never know what the truth is.
He called himself a last-day prophet and beseeched his listeners to repent and prepare for the end times.
We didnt take [Mack] seriously, Andrew says of his brothers interest in this faraway doomsday preacher.
We probably should have taken him a lot more seriously.
Mack was flailing at this point in his life.
There was a point [when] he was always sick, Andrew says.
His marriage to Hill-Johnson had ended in 1999 when Amanda and Asah were toddlers.
He told me, Dont come back here.
Theres nothing here for you, Hill-Johnson recalls, still bewildered by how abrupt the conversation was.
In a daze, she stayed in Chicago having a breakdown, she says.
Mack barely mentioned Hill-Johnson to the kids, saying she abandoned them.
Amanda once remembers crying that she missed her mom.
Mack moved into his mothers home and became a full-time caretaker.
Money was tight, and the dynamic was odd, with two other women joining the household.
A woman by the name of Yoko, who dated Mack, became the childrens nanny.
Baaqiah Muhammad, who Mack hired to help with his production business, also moved in.
If there were any romantic labels put on the situation, it was unknown to outsiders.
The noise spewing from the radio began permeating the lives of everyone in the house, including the children.
Amanda and Asah were tweens when Mack called a family meeting that would upend their lives.
Things are going to change, he told them.
Me and my brother were really excited about this because we thought itd be an adventure, Amanda says.
Looking back, we did not know the velocity of how intense this was going to get.
They spent Saturdays listening to sermons.
Public education went from a key part of their development to blasphemous heresy.
Science was the devils work, and he tried to pull us out of science class, Amanda says.
Eventually, I just got pulled out of middle school.
Mack began shutting people out of his life, too.
Johns arrived at Macks house only to be turned away.
He opens up the door and says, Youre the devil … You guys are all going to hell.
And he closed the door in my face, Johns says.
It was the last time he saw Mack.
He brought large dumpsters to the house to chuck anything they werent taking with them.
It just felt like that intensity.
He was like, We gotta go.
We gotta go.
Macks booming voice breaks through the wails of others as he shouts, Hallelujah!
They were praying for healing.
Stair gingerly takes Macks hands and helps him to his feet, supporting him as he attempts to walk.
Still, he is by his prophets side, worshiping.
Glory to God, he says.
By the point the church video was taken, in 2017, Mack was a devout member of Overcomer.
It was the first time Mack had been seen publicly in years.
Apart from immediate family, no one really knew where Mack was.
It was all hell, Amanda says of her seven years at Overcomer.
But the first three years were the worst.
I wont call it poverty, but two steps up, Andrew says of Macks living conditions.
Mack worked at a local high school assisting special-needs students, and Muhammad and Yoko worked on the farm.
The family attended sabbath services, prayer meetings, and group dinners where Stair would go on hours-long diatribes.
Youre constantly hearing his preaching.
He has loudspeakers, [and] youre listening to him basically, almost 24/7.
It was hearing nothing but his voice and dogma all the time.
Hepleaded guiltyto two misdemeanors of assault and battery in 2004 after two women accused him of rape.
(Stair died in April 2021before he was ever tried in court.)
My dad has voiced plenty of times that he would kill somebody if we got touched, Amanda says.
My dad was there for the Lord.
But you wont touch my kids.
Life in Overcomer was suffocating, Amanda says.
When Amanda graduated from the churchs school, she became an unpaid teacher there.
Disillusioned and unhappy, Amanda started skipping church services and seized the first opportunity to leave.
A 16-year-old Asah would eventually leave too.
They were largely on their own.
Word made its way to Andrew that Amanda had left the church.
His stomach dropped when he realized the extent of what she and Asah had been through.
It wasnt even a matter of thinking we just wanted to get them out of [that situation].
Although Amanda and Asah had pleaded with Mack to leave South Carolina with them, Mack refused.
There was no fight, only resignation on both sides.
His children were leaving, and Mack was staying put with Muhammad and Yoko.
Andrew brought Asah back to Vermont to live with him, while Amanda visited Hill-Johnson.
It would be their first time meeting since Amanda was a toddler.
(Amanda would later join Asah and her uncle and live in Vermont.)
The phone eventually rang.
Hi Mommy, Hill-Johnson remembers Amanda saying on that first call.
I almost passed out.
Craig Mack is where hes supposed to be, he rapped to fellow congregation members in May 2016.
The lyrics served as his testimony, as well as a callback to his song When God Comes.
If I stayed in New York, just another tragedy.
Macks health was beginning to deteriorate; he was frequently catching intense colds and had begun using a cane.
Around late 2014, Mack was telling people hed been diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
Jennings recalls Mack once being hospitalized and that he briefly took some medication before refusing to take anything else.
Jesus was hated, too, Mack noted.
They killed him, and then they hung him on a cross.
By March 2018, there came a point when Mack couldnt pretend any longer.
His walking cane was barely enough to support him, and he became bedridden.
Muhammad made a call to Macks children in Vermont it was time to say goodbye.
Ive truly, honestly never seen a human being in that condition before, Andrew says.
There was little to be done.
Mack wanted to be in his home with no medical intervention, and his family abided by his wishes.
The children and Andrew stayed with Mack for several days.
Amanda never left his deathbed.
They eventually said their goodbyes knowing it would be their last and headed home.
Before arriving back in Vermont, they received a call from Muhammad that Mack had died.
There were no extravagant funeral plans Mack wished for no fuss and to be buried on the Overcomer compound.
Brother J. Craig Mack his headstone reads to this day.
Whatever mistakes he made, this was his penitence.
I know that sounds really crazy, but you have to know him to understand that.
As much as that bothers me, I understand why he did what he did.
He lived his truth.
Its been six years since Macks death, and the documentary that Toney started is in limbo.
Craig loved Harlem, Roxanne says.
He should be buried in Harlem [where] his other family members were buried.
Macks family is still putting together the pieces of his life.
Could he have survived if hed sought treatment?
Was his escape to Overcomer a bid to outrun someone else, or simply his own past?
Whatever mistakes he made, was Overcomer his form of repentance?
Would this church lead him to salvation?
Several have their doubts that Mack bought into Brother Stair fully.
While Stair decried doctors and hospitals, Mack intermittently received medical care and took medicine.
Adding to loved ones confusion, Mack was veering on paranoia before his death.
He kept several guns in the house, though Mack later told the church he sold them.
Some things Im not going to share, she demurs.
I do feel like Puffs the trigger he fucked my family up, she says.
Puff kicked it off; he was the catalyst.
A source close to Mack isnt so sure.
He was fading, Jennings says.
Upon parting, Jennings says, Mack gave him a message to pass along.
