Malyssa Burns wasn’t sure how she would handle the emotions of being in Toronto for a weekend-long memorial held in honour of her late spouse, the celebrated Dartmouth rapper Pat Stay. She brought along his signature sunglasses for comfort—“that helped my crying eyes,” she tells The Coast—but nothing could have fully prepared her for the turnout she saw at the Axis Club the weekend of Feb. 25-26, nor the reception she received upon her arrival.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be in a room with that many people again where everybody shares the same feeling… There was nothing negative in that room,” she says. “Everybody was just so filled with love and emotion.”
It wasn’t an easy room to be in for Burns. It’s been a harrowing six months for the Dartmouth hairstylist, ever since Stay, 36, was killed downtown in Halifax on Sept. 4, 2022. Last weekend, the late battle rapper’s peers from across North America gathered in his memory. In just two days, they raised more than $200,000 for Burns and her two children—money she says will help to carry on the goals she and Stay shared for their family.
“Money aside, the love is just crazy,” she says, speaking by phone with The Coast. “It really warms my heart… and my heart has needed a lot of warming.”
‘Gotta do it to preserve his legacy’
Travis Fleetwood, better known in rap circles as King of the Dot founder Organik, says it was only natural to honour his late friend Stay with a battle rap fundraiser in his memory. The two had a friendship dating back to 2007-08, when they were both burgeoning battlers in Toronto and Dartmouth’s hip-hop scenes.
“Pat was always someone that just wanted to be known as a good person,” Fleetwood says, speaking by phone with The Coast.
Stay went on to build a legacy as a larger-than-life competitor on King of the Dot, a Toronto-based battle rap competition that earned global fame—and superstar admirers from the likes of Drake—through its slick YouTube videos and over-the-top freestyle exchanges. The Dartmouth native headlined the series’ annual World Domination event six times and claimed the title in 2013. He was scheduled to headline another King of the Dot event before his passing.
“When Pat passed, it was tough to wrap my head around,” Fleetwood says. “We had a lot of ambitions and plans… It left me wondering what to even do anymore.” By October, the idea germinated for a benefit event in Stay’s honour. All profits would go to Stay’s family.
“I want to make this the biggest event ever to raise as much for his family as we can,” Fleetwood tweeted on Oct. 14, 2022.
I’m organizing a Pat Stay memorial battle event.
— Organik KOTD x GhostDrops #LLPS🕊️ (@OrganikHipHop) October 14, 2022
I’m 100% open to working with other leagues.
100% of profits will be going to Pat’s family.
I want to make this the biggest event ever to raise as much for his family as we can.
Let’s do this together as a culture. 🙏
Support poured in from across the hip-hop community. Battle rappers from Los Angeles to New York City made plans to gather in Toronto over two days in February and pay tribute to Stay. Some—like Portland, Oregon’s Illmaculate and Pittsburgh’s Real Deal—braved snowstorms and cancelled flights in order to cross the Canada-U.S. border to attend. Over the course of the weekend, through pay-per-view streams and in-person tickets to Toronto’s Axis Club, organizers were able to raise more than $200,000 for Stay’s family. The response, Fleetwood says, is a testament to the effect Stay had on those around him.
“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice,” he tells The Coast. “That was something he pushed on people… He was the first person to say, ‘I love you’ on the phone, and just one of those people who always let you know he was there for you.”
Sometimes you just need to pour it all out on the track. #StayForever 💐❤️🥲 pic.twitter.com/TiGEitFkxy
— MC Jin (@iammcjin) February 27, 2023
Burns calls Fleetwood “some type of angel on Earth” watching over her family. “He shares the same type of heart as Pat: They just care so much about other people.”
‘The Sidney Crosby of battle rap’
Stay’s reputation didn’t just precede him globally—it also earned him respect at home. Enfield’s Luke Boyd, better known as MMVA and Juno Award-winning rapper Classified, says he could share “stories for days” about Stay and the mark he left on those who knew him.
“He was just a great guy to talk to,” Boyd says, speaking by phone with The Coast, “a good listener, but at the same time, good at giving feedback. [He was] one of those guys that just had good advice and would see things [from] a little bit wider [perspective] than most people normally see.”
Boyd feels that even with Stay’s level of recognition, his accomplishments deserve more kudos. He calls Stay the “Sidney Crosby of battle rap” in his concerts. “They worked at it and became the best in the world from Nova Scotia… literally, if you follow battle rap and you really watch it, to me, he was the best at what he did.”
He’s not alone in that opinion. In the days after Stay’s death on Sept. 4, 2022, tributes poured in from the likes of Eminem. Drake called Stay one of his “fav rappers ever.”
hiphop lost one of the best battlers of all time … RIP @patstay .. KINGS NEVER DIE‼️
— Marshall Mathers (@Eminem) September 5, 2022
News of Stay’s death rippled far beyond Nova Scotia, reaching the pages of CNN and the UK’s Sky News. It also sparked a growing chorus of friends, family and fans who have lobbied for a street in Dartmouth to be renamed in Stay’s honour. A change.org petition calling on Halifax mayor Mike Savage and regional council to rename a street after the “Darkside” rapper has garnered more than 6,600 e-signatures.
“If anybody deserves this, it’s definitely Pat,” longtime friend Cody Good told The Coast in November. He remembers Stay as “always willing to help talk out a problem or seek out who needs some help to get through an issue.”
A GoFundMe campaign—separate from the King of the Dot fundraiser—has raised more than $269,500 for Stay’s family since September.
Inquiry scheduled for man accused in Stay’s homicide
Stay was found stabbed outside of Halifax’s Yacht Club Social on Lower Water Street in the early morning hours on Sept. 4, 2022. Police arrested Adam Joseph Drake, 31, six days later and have charged him with first-degree murder. Drake also faces a first-degree murder charge in the 2016 killing of 22-year-old Tyler Keizer.
As SaltWire reported in December, a preliminary inquiry is scheduled for September 2023. That will determine, based on any evidence, whether Drake would proceed to a jury trial in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.