The Club of Death Rhymes: Famous Rappers Whose Mysterious Deaths Are Shrouded in Bizarre Circumstances

Will rap be a bad influence?

Will it be about living fast and dying young and radiant?

How did these rap stars die?

Hip hop experienced its "golden age" in the 1990s.

When this musical genre was at its peak, rivalries between rappers from the East Coast and the U. S. West Coast began a spiral of violence.

At the time, fans got divided between two of the most influential rappers in history: Tupac, who represented the West Coast, and Notorious Big, the big name on the East Coast.

Both artists were shot to death by unknown gunmen from moving vehicles in 1996 and 1997.

But they were not the only artists who have met a violent end.

Today, significant figures, who are considered icons in the history of rap, were killed by firearms.

These are some of them:

1- Tupac Shakur (June 16, 1971 — September 13, 1996)

Tupac Amaru Shakur, also known as 2Pac or simply Tupac, was an American rapper.

He is the artist of his genre with the most albums sold worldwide; he sold more than 100 million albums worldwide as of 2009.

In addition, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him first in its list of the best rappers of all time.

His lyrics focus primarily on growing up around violence due to growing up in the Bronx, a borough with a lot of poverty, abuse of women, neighborhood hardships, and messages of racial equality.

Initially, Shakur was touring and was a backup dancer for the alternative hip-hop group Digital Underground.

The night he was shot, Tupac had gotten into an altercation in the M.G.M. lobby with Orlando Anderson, a member of the Southside Crips gang.

Weeks later, Anderson was arrested for the crime but was later released and acquitted.

Tupac got into Knight's car. Behind, in several vehicles, were other musicians, bodyguards, and friends.

The caravan left the hotel in the direction of the disco "662".

At 11.15 p.m., a traffic light stopped the march.

A white Cadillac with four black men inside stopped next to the BMW.

They fired several shots at the BMW: four hit him in the chest, and one bullet grazed Knight's head.

However, bodyguards in other cars did not react quickly, and the attackers escaped.

Tupac died on September 13 at the University of Nevada hospital.

He was 25 years old.

Childhood friend and Outlawz member Yafeu "Yaki Kadafi" Fula was in convoy at the time of the shooting and indicated to police that he might be able to identify the assailants.

However, within two months, he killed him in New Jersey.

Another line of investigation pointed to rapper Notorious B.I.G. and Puff Daddy as having ordered Tupac's murder.

Tupac accused them of having sent assassins to kill him in 1994 and made a song threatening them, so some people assume that Puff Daddy and Biggie had Tupac killed so that nothing would happen to them.

Notorious was the most visible face of East Coast rap and Death Row's rival record label Bad Boy.

But nothing could be proven.

Then, six months later, in March 1997, Notorious was murdered in Los Angeles.

He had attended the Soul Train Music Awards and got riddled with bullets in his car.

Both crimes remain unpunished today.

The only concrete fact is that with both deaths, the only ones who benefited were the two record companies -Death Row and Bad Boy- which, after the crimes, released and sold millions of records.

Another theory says that Death Row label C.E.O. Suge Knight arranged to have his label's star rapper killed and that the West Coast Mob Piru Bloods affiliates did the job.

Tupac was attempting to leave the Death Row label, an idea that came about after alleged conversations with a particular girlfriend and after the firing of the label's lawyer, David Kenner.

Knight also owed Shakur a large sum of money.

The gunshot wound Knight claims to have suffered in Las Vegas has never been verified by the police department or anyone besides Knight.

Finally, it also said that it could have been the police who had Tupac killed because they feared he was leading hip hop as an anti-establishment social movement that they could not control.

2- The Notorious B.I.G. (May 21, 1972 — March 9, 1997)

He released the critically acclaimed album Ready To Die in 1994 and became the central figure in East Coast rap, rivaling the West Coast.

However, his career got marked by ongoing feuds between Bad Boy Records and Death Row Records.

Nevertheless, until he died in 1997, The Notorious B.I.G. was celebrated as a hip-hop legend.

His double album Life After Death, released shortly after his death, is the 5th best-selling Hip Hop album, with 28 million copies.

On March 9, 1997, Biggie attended the Soul Train Music Awards at the Peterson Automotive Museum on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Other guests included Busta Rhymes, Heavy D, Da Brat, Aaliyah (deceased 2001), Jermaine Dupri, Jagged Edge, Sean "Puffy" Combs, and Ice Cube.

Biggie left in a black GMC Suburban with his friends when the party was over.

At around 0:45, the street crowded with people going to the event. Biggie's car stopped at a traffic light about 45 meters from the museum.

Waiting for the green light to accelerate, a black Chevrolet Impala pulled up next to Wallace's car.

The driver of the Chevy rolled down his window and pulled out a gun with which he fired at the GMC Suburban; four shots struck Biggie's chest.

While believed to have died instantly, he rushed to Cedars Sinai Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles, where he would die at 24.

More than ten years later, his murder has yet to be conclusively solved, although theories as to the motives and identities of the killers abound.

Several prime suspects include Suge Knight, the C.E.O. of Death Row, and the Mob Piru Bloods, a criminal gang.

Twelve years after his murder, the corpulent vocalist's death investigation is still unfinished.

His family filed a civil suit against the police and the city of Los Angeles in 2002, in which they claimed a police officer killed him, but in 2005 annulled the process due to alleged alterations that are disputed to this day.

But people close to B.I.G. claim that his death was revenge for the murder, six months earlier in Las Vegas, of his rival Tupac Shakur, also shot in his car when he was next to Knight.

He's considered one of the most stylish rappers of all time, Biggie Smalls — as he was also known — did not live long enough to enjoy his success, as he had barely released an album at the time of his murder.

3- Big L (May 30, 1974 — February 15, 1999)

He's considered one of the stylish"freestylers" and"punchlines" in rap history.

Coleman is a native of Harlem, New York, where he began his career as a rapper with "Three The Hard Way."

His first professional appearance was with Lord Finesse on the "Yes You May (Remix)" in 1992.

More known by his stage name Big L, Lamont Coleman was an American rapper stylishly remembered for his inflow and great lyrics.

He launched his debut album "Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous" in 1995 and has contributed significantly to the worldwide hip-hop and rap scene.

His second and last studio album was "The Big Picture," put together by Coleman's manager "Rich King."

The album was released posthumously in 2000 and was awarded a gold album by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Four posthumous albums have been released since then, consisting mainly of unreleased songs released by "Rich King" and his brother Donald.

He created his independent label "Flamboyant Entertainment" in 1998, where he released one of his best singles, "Ebonics."

On February 15, 1999, Big L left his home in the New York neighborhood of Harlem.

Shortly after that, he got gunned down by an assailant who, to this day, has not yet been identified.

Gerard Woodley, a childhood friend, was arrested but released for lack of evidence.

The reasons for this murder are not known with certainty, although there is speculation that it may have been a settling of scores related to one of L's brothers, who was serving a prison sentence at the time.

In 2010 Big L's older brother, Donald Phinazee declared that his death had been a mistake: the killers were looking for his other brother, Lee, who ended up meeting the same fate when he died on the streets of New York in 2002.

That day, one of the most positively recognized flows in rap history died, leaving only one album published during his lifespan: 'Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous (1995).

His demise is compared to that of two other great U.S. rappers, The Notorious B.I.G and Tupac Shakur, who have also died at the hands of someone.

4- Tyrone José González Oramas (Canserbero) (March 11, 1988 — January 20, 2015)

Canserbero was a Venezuelan rapper, singer, composer, and labor leader.

He was one of rap's influential interpreters of non-commercial rap in his home country and, in turn, had notoriety in other Latin American territories and Spain.

He became interested in music, especially reggaeton.

Still, after the murder of his half-brother, his musical references changed to more critical genres such as hip hop and hard rock, palpable in songs like "Es épico."

On January 20, 2015, Canserbero was found lifeless in front of his apartment.

It is assumed that the artist threw himself from the tenth floor of the Camino Real building in the urbanization of La Soledad in Maracay.

At first, some of his relatives claimed that the artist was living in the apartment of Carlos Molnar, a friend, and co-worker, since he had schizophrenia.

Others alleged that he had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, which Canserbero allegedly refused to "recognize."

Later, his relatives denied such conjectures, claiming that the artist did not have any mental illness at his death.

However, in her statement, Molnar's wife, Natalia, said that Canserbero entered his room and stabbed her husband several times, ending his life, after which he decided to commit suicide.

The other theory indicates that Canserbero was having intimate relations with Carlos Molar's wife in his apartment.

Then Carlos arrived and, upon seeing them together, began to attack Canserbero, throwing him out of the window.

That would explain why Canserbero appears with his pants down in the photographs of the day of his death.

Then he wanted to attack his wife, and she defended herself by stabbing him.

Later, Natalia, Carlos' wife, escaped from the country, and some people even say that she stole seven thousand dollars that Canserbero happened to have in Carlos' apartment before running.

His funeral was served by hundreds of people, encouraging the relatives.

All of Venezuela moved.

As some people say, his tomb was not marked with R.I.P., but with R.A.P.

5- Samurái (August 4, 1984-December 13, 2017)

Samurái is a renowned Colombian rapper who made dark songs and other reflective songs.

On December 13, 2017, he left his house and did not know that it was the last time he said goodbye to his family.

Some people indicate that they saw him fighting in a home in the neighborhood Bolivar that same day.

But things got worse when on December 17, Samurai was supposed to give a musical presentation in Madrid, but the rapper did not show up.

Then Christmas came, and Samurai did not arrive home, nor did he call his family.

A similar thing occurred on New Year's Day.

Everyone wondered where the rapper was and searched for him until January 4, in an uninhabited and wooded area of the El Mochuelo neighborhood, they found a decomposed body.

After 11 days of studies, they confirmed Samurai's corpse.

But, in this case, it got not even officially known who the crime suspects were.

6- XXXTentacion (January 23, 1998-June 18, 2018)

Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, better known as XXXTentacion, was an American rapper who released his first song on the streaming audio platform "Sound Cloud."

Only 20 years old, he had a long history of arrests and accusations, the last one of gender violence.

His first album got released in the summer of 2017.

With his second studio album "?" he reached the number one spot on the Billboard 200.

Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, The Fray, and Coldplay are his musical influences.

On June 18, 2018, in Florida, while leaving a motorcycle dealership, he was shot by two unknown gunmen from a sports car.

In what could point to a robbery, the young rapper lost his life as the assailants took a Lois Vuitton bag and fled.

Authorities believe as many as three cars were following Onfroy before entering the RIVA Motorsports dealership.

The incident took place east of the city of Parkland; the suspects fled the scene.

The Broward County Fire Department rushed him to Broward Health North.

Onfroy got initially reported to be in critical condition following the shooting, and the Broward County Sheriff's Office later confirmed his death.

Gekyume, his posthumous son, had with his new girlfriend Jenesis Sanchez, was born on January 26, 2019.

Suspect Dedrick Devonshay Williams of Pompano Beach was arrested two days later, shortly before 7 p.m., on charges of first-degree unpremeditated murder.

In the weeks that followed, three others got arrested for their direct involvement in the murder of XXXTentacion, at a motorcycle store they broke into while he was shopping.

Funeral

An open casket service for Onfroy got held at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida, on June 27, where fans were able to pay their respects.

His private funeral took place on June 28, where rappers Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty and singer Erykah Badu were in attendance.

He got buried in a mausoleum at the Gardens of Boca Raton Memorial Park, Boca Raton, Florida.

Sources:

https://www.abc.es

https://www.lavanguardia.com

https://es.wikipedia.org

https://www.clarin.com

https://www.elperiodico.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy0wHrPBfg0