Schoolly D, Janis Ian among new inductees in Philly’s Walk of Fame

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For perhaps the first time in his life, Schoolly D was speechless.

When the rapper, known as the progenitor of gangsta rap since his track “P.S.K. What Does It Mean?” in 1985, unveiled a bronze plaque with his name embedded into the side of South Broad Street at Lombard Street, he was so proud he didn’t have the words.

“Do I have to say it?” said Schoolly, making a full-body gesture indicating his excitement that a kid named Jesse Weaver, who grew up hustling on the streets of West Philly, would one day have his name in the city’s Walk of Fame. “You know what I’m saying?”

Then Schoolly got his flow back.

“When I grew up in the ‘60s, everyone was, like, all little boys and all little girls, you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up. And I believed it,” he said. “I knew I was going to be an artist: I was going to be a rock star and I was going to write a ‘Scooby-Doo’ song.”

Coming of age on a diet of 1970s television, Schoolly D has previously said he always wanted to write music for cartoons. He eventually wrote the theme to “Aqua Team Hunger Force.”

Schoolly is in the 2025 class of inductees in the Walk of Fame, a series of plaques running from Walnut Street to Lombard Street, launched in 1986 by the Philadelphia Music Alliance. The alliance paused adding new plaques during the pandemic, returning in 2023 but skipping 2024. The 2025 plaques have expanded the Walk of Fame south, all the way to the Suzanne Roberts Theatre.

The group includes the 1960s pop dance group The Orlons (“South Street”), composer David Ludwig, formerly of the Curtis Institute and now dean at The Juilliard School, and David Dye, longtime DJ with WXPN and former host of the nationally syndicated radio show “World Cafe.”

“As I say: Everybody can walk all over me now,” said Dye, standing over his plaque. “This is a real honor. I never expected it.”

Folk singer Janis Ian, of Farmingdale, New Jersey, now has a plaque in the sidewalk, but was not at Wednesday’s unveiling. She had close ties to Philadelphia early in her career, as well as hits like “Society’s Child” and “At Seventeen,” a song she performed on the first episode of “Saturday Night Live” when it debuted in October 1975.

The late Stephen Sondheim was also inducted. He has few significant ties to Philadelphia but often stayed in Doylestown, Bucks County, in the home of his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein.

Honorees include Settlement Music School. Over its 117 years, the educational institution has shaped several of the musicians with whom it now shares Broad Street, including Chubby Checker, Christian McBride, Kevin Eubanks, Questlove, the Bacon Brothers (Kevin and Michael), Joey DeFrancesco and Mario Lanza.

There are also plaques honoring the owners of three seminal jazz clubs in Philadelphia: the Showboat (Herb Spivak), Pep’s (Jack Goldenberg) and the Cadillac Club (Ben Bynum).

“Today’s ceremony brings the total number of Walk of Fame inductees to 166,” said Alan Rubens, Philadelphia Music Alliance board chair. “That figure speaks, or should I say sings, volumes about the unique place Philadelphia holds in the global music realm, in that each and every Philadelphian can and should take great pride.”