The Grouch is at his Los Angeles home taking a couple of well deserved days off—kind of. With the second leg of the annual How the Grouch Stole Christmas Tour starting Thursday (December 11) at the Observatory in Santa Ana, California, there’s still a lot to do. As he tells AllHipHop, he’s been “wearing a lot of hats:” driver, merch supervisor and performer, to name a few.
But at this point, Grouch is well seasoned, having launched his music career in the 1990s. He’s gone on dozens of tours, performed at countless venues and traveled around the world with his Living Legends brethren—only this time, there’s one missing.
In August 2025, Derrick McElroy, better known as Aesop the Black Wolf or simply Aesop, died suddenly, leaving the rest of the Living Legends—Luckyiam, The Grouch, Eligh, Bicasso, Sunspot Jonz and Scarub—in shambles. Just 50 years old at the time of his death, Aesop wasn’t supposed to go and the tight knit Hip-Hop collective was by no means ready to say goodbye.
Despite the massive, soul-crushing loss, the Living Legends have soldiered on, honoring Aesop every chance they get, whether it’s with tribute t-shirts, photos, video montages during concerts, social media or his verses. But each show is a challenge in its own way.
“Now that Aesop’s not here, I got to take out his verse or add it, and it’s just been a lot for me,” Grouch explains. “But it’s what I signed up for.”
That’s the easy part. Living Legends performed with Atmosphere, Hieroglyphics, Dilated Peoples, Immortal Technique and CunninLynguists at the historic Red Rocks Amphitheater in September, mere weeks after Aesop’s death. The air was heavy with grief though there was a sense he was there in spirit. That continues to happen on occasion but, of course, a Living Legends show will never be the same.
“We got a tribute part to him in the show,” he says. “But just being on stage and him not being there that’s an obvious thing. We’re missing a person that’s been with us for 30 years. Even staying at some of the hotels we’ve stayed at or being in some of the cities—all these different triggers that can spark a memory of him are just hitting right and left. Sometimes I just block it out, and sometimes it’s just deep and I’m like, ‘Whoa, he’s really not here.’ I just miss his spirit. I miss his laugh.”
Still, without Aesop—who had a huge, colorful personality and truly cared about the people in his life—the vibe has shifted.
“We include his verses on some of the songs, but it’s obviously not the same,” Grouch adds. “Part of me feels like, ‘Oh, he’s on stage with us.’ There’s moments where something will happen and I’ll be like, ‘Oh yeah, like he’s here.’ I love that but, it’s a big void.”
Thankfully, Grouch has his fellow Legends to lean on. For this year’s iteration of How the Grouch Stole Christmas Tour, he’s enlisted Souls of Mischief and CunninLynguists to round out the bill. They, too, have proven to be good support systems. Some of their friendships, in fact, stretch back decades.
“I always try to get a creative lineup,” he says. “A lot of years I tried to do a younger artist and an older artist. I’ve tried a couple things and this time we were just like, ‘Let’s keep it a golden era, underground hip-hop lineup. The Souls of Mischief thing is really huge because I went to high school and even junior high with a couple of the guys.”
In many ways, The Grouch exists because of them. He explains, “They were in a grade higher than me and they were cooler than me, so I didn’t really know them. But I was inspired by them in real life, watching them on Yo! MTV Raps, seeing them sign to Jive Records and have their initial success. I was super inspired. It gave me a feeling that if these guys from my hometown and my actual school can do it, then maybe I can do it, too.”
He adds, “The power of them creating, what I believe is, one of the best Hip-Hop songs of all time,’93 to Infinity,’ those guys are Hip-Hop royalty. To have them on the same stage as us in 2025 is a beautiful blessing.”
Living Legends’ latest album, The Return, was released in 2023. The How the Grouch Stole Christmas Tour wraps up December 20 in Salt Lake City. Find a list of tour dates above.