A new sculpture was unveiled Thursday at the gateway of the City of Mount Vernon in honor of late hip-hop and city native Heavy D.

Friends and family of the musical legend gathered for the unveiling right at the entrance of the city.

"To my family, Mount Vernon is our solid ground. We love Mount Vernon, my son loved Mount Vernon," said his mother, Eulahlee Myers.

"He was my classmate, he was my friend, he was my party partner," said Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard.

To the world, he was Heavy D, but in Mount Vernon, he was Dwight Arrington Myers.

"A solid person, a good man, a wonderful son, an incredible father," Shawyn Patterson-Howard added.

"Eto told me a story that my son inspired him so much that he had to do something to honor him in the town that he loved," Myers about the sculpture's artist, Eto Otitigbe.

He named the sculpture "Peaceful Journey" after one of Heavy D's famed albums.

"If you look at my sculpture, it doesn't look like Heavy D, it doesn't look like Heavy D's music, it doesn't even look like hip-hop. But what it does look like is innovation. It's an innovation of form, innovation of materials. So, by its character and the nature of its design, it reflects a lot of the innovation that we see in hip-hop music and the innovation that was inherent in Heavy D's career," Otitigbe explained.

The sculpture is comprised of marble and two types of steel: stainless steel and corten steel.

"It has character, and it changes over time, it will redden and brown, it will evolve just as this community is evolving," Otitigbe said.

Heavy D died in 2011, but the sculpture will keep him alive in the city that impacted him.

"Work that anyone can experience as they're walking down the street. You don't need a ticket, you don't need to buy admission or anything like that, you can just enjoy it for what it is," Otitigbe said.