his friend wrote some stuff about that great man,so if u aint busy feel free to read it 
Man I have so many memories of Proof like watching him rap in the lunchroom at school (Osborn) while beating on the table, spitting in the ciphers after school. He went by the name of Maximum then (I actually always liked that name better than Proof) & nobody could fuck with him in a battle. Thyme of 5Ela was in my Algebra class & I witnessed them form the group with Mud. I remember one time at The Hip-Hop Shop on west seven mile this dude comes in popping shit like nobody could see him on the mic, all of a sudden Proof came from the back with DJ Head & just start ripping my man to pieces. The guy had an ADIDAS shirt on & Proof broke down all the letters of the word to dis him. He pointed at his shirt & was like Another Dumb Ignorant Dumb Ass fucking with Shawn & dude exited quiclkly after that! Then one time he was battling me in my basement. I thought I had beat him when I used the fact that he didn't graduate from high school as a punchline. We went back & forth for a minute but he finally beat me when he teased me about this girl we knew that I was fucking with at the time. She was a twin so he said "take the T off & I win take the W off & I'm in" your girl. I gave up after that line! We would walk to the store on east seven mile & outer drive & he would freestyle about the 99 cent Faygo pop signs on the side of the store. I actually learned how to freestyle from him because he would always talk about stuff right in front of you so you would know that what he was spitting was not written. He would often play me Eminem's songs with DJ Butterfinger & he was dope then but I always thought that Proof would blow up before Eminem would. I remember being at his house one day & we were listening to Souls Of Mischief's song "93 til infinity" His favorite line was "If you really dope why aren't you signed yet, but I'm a rhyme vet, & I'm at,Jive Zomba, I'll bomb ya, you'll see from 93' to infinity." It was like that line would irk him & motivate him because at that time he didn't have a deal yet but I guess he got the last laugh in the end. I always knew that he would succeed. He always had a good business sense & he along with Maurice Malone thought of the hip-hop clothing line idea way before other rappers did. Some people don't know this but we grew up on the same street (Beland) & he would often come down to my house to hoop. We also found his good friend Snook (that you often hear him mention in his rhymes) dead on the side of my house. I remember we didn't have the money to bail our boy Earl out of jail. We needed $2000.00 to get him out. At that time he was the only person I knew that could come up with that kind of money that quick so I called him Proof & he went & got him out. Earl was there when he recorded "Kurt Kobain" & maybe thats why he mentioned him in the song when he said "my brother Earl & Wayne that money for bail & jail ya'll can keep that" He was like a brother to me Andre Earl & the rest of our Beland Boyz & we miss him dearly. Coincidentally we dropped our first solo CD's in the same year. I dropped "My Birth" May 24th 2005 & he came with "Searching For Garcia" Aug 9th 2005. I saw him at the Zoo Bar & he clowned me for not having my contact # on the inside of the CD but one day at his office in the Michigan building he sat there with me & listened to my CD from beginning to the end. I told him that I appreciated him taking the time out of his busy schedule to do that. He was like "come on its me man stop being gay" He was never one to hold his tongue & once before we fell out over something stupid back in the day but squashed our beef. I lost contact with him for a while but he bumped in to my father & called me out of the blue gave me a new york # & he constantly changed #'s so we lost contact again until I met him at a club (formerly known as The Icon) for Slum Villages album release party. We started hanging again from that day forward. He bought me down to his office at the Michigan Building thats when I met Famous, Flame, Killa Kauun, 1st Born, Darcy, Dolo, Dove & Supa Mc among many others. I already knew Hostyle from the Woof Pac because we battled once & did a show at Hart Plaza together. The Woof Pac used to be at the Dynastly Lounge (now known as Status) on 8 mile. I was surprised to see them there & J-Kid told me that Proof had just signed them to the label. Proof was the only artist from the D that I saw actually looking to help the underground Detroit artists. He was a very generous person he would buy everybody pizza or just say fuck it & take everybody to Cedar Point Amusment Park for the weekend. He loved to watched the 40 year old virgin movie & one time he put me up on a movie with LL Cool J in it called "Mindhunters"He did a show in Toledo & I remember Famous got us kicked out of this poetry spot for eating up they food! Man I miss those days we had a lot of fun. We often partied at his mom's (Pepa's) spot & he often had Dolo with him for security. I watched him lose a lot of money at Greektown Casino one night! The next day after that my car got towed in front of his office. It was Superbowl weekend & he did a show at the State Theatre with Eminem D-12 & the rest of the crew from Shady. That was the first time I heard Bobby Creekwater & saw him perform. I got a chance to meet Mike Tyson there. After Superbowl weekend he went to Australia & talked about the possibility of relocating to Phoenix Arizona. One of my most memorable moments is me & Earl rolling in the car when J.Dilla died so I called Proof to see if he heard the news. He replied yes ,that he had been getting drunk all night & was so fucked up about it that he passed out in his car. The last conversation I had with him was when we was at his apartment downtown & we were talking about me becoming a part of Iron Fist next thing I know I got the call that he was gone. When J.Dilla & Proof died I felt like Detroit Hip-Hop died right along with them & I didn't want to rap any more but I know Proof would never want me or anyone else to stop so now everytime I write a rhyme, get in the booth, or do a show I think of him. He was like a big brother to me & I'll never forget him.
R.i.P 
