The senseless murder of on-the-rise L.A. rap star Nipsey Hussle this week tragically places the beloved, Grammy-nominated MC on a growing list of California hip hop artists who have died in gangland-style slayings. There have been five murders of West Coast rappers in the past four years.
Below is a breakdown of every Cali killing tied to the rap game:
The California Rap Murder Time Line
December 16, 1993 – San Jose rapper Charles (Charizma) Hicks is mugged and shot to death in front of his church in East Palo Alto, California. Charizma and his partner in the rap game Chris (Peanut Butter Wolf) Manak were signed with Disney-owned Hollywood Records and toured with Nas and The Pharcyde.
January 1, 1996 – San Francisco rapper Kyle (Mr. Cee) Church is shot to death on New Year’s Day, only months removed from getting signed by Atlantic Records with his pioneering rap group, the RBL Posse, known for their 1991 hit “Don’t Give Me No Bammer Weed.”
July 31, 1996 – Bay Area rapper Seagram, signed to the Rap-A-Lot label out of Houston and a collaborator with Rap-A-Lot flagship troop the Geto Boys, is killed in a drive-by shooting in East Oakland.
September 13, 1996 – West Coast rap superstar Tupac Shakur succumbs to wounds sustained days earlier in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas following a Mike Tyson fight. Shakur is one of the most beloved and respected popular music figures of his time and was an up-and-coming actor at the time of his death. He was inciting tensions with his rivals on the East Coast, specifically his allies-turned-enemies in the Notorious B.I.G. and Bad Boy Records camp.
March 9, 1997 – New York rap titan Christopher (Notorious B.I.G.) Wallace is gunned down in the passenger’s seat of a SUV leaving a post Soul Train Music Awards party at L.A.’s Petersen Automotive Museum. Wallace and Tupac Shakur’s personal feud had turned into an all-out East Coast-West Coast rap war.
July 4, 2000 – L.A. rapper Johnny (Mausberg) Burns is slain in a drive-by shooting in Compton, California. Mausberg was a protégé of DJ Quick and had just been a featured performer on Snoop Dogg’s No Limit Top Dogg album.
February 2, 2003 – San Francisco rapper Ricky (Hitman) Herd of the seminal Bay Area rap group the RBL Posse is shot to death behind the wheel of his car while driving through an intersection in the city’s Bayview neighborhood.
November 1, 2004 – Oakland rap legend Andre (Mac Dre) Hicks is killed in a drive-by shooting in Kansas City, Missouri when his tour bus comes under attack by automatic gunfire on U.S. Route 71 after a show. Hicks broke through at the forefront of high-paced “dance rap” or “Hyphy” movement in the early 2000s.
March 18, 2009 – Atlanta rapper Roderick (Dolla) Burton is killed in Los Angeles as he waited for his car at the valet stand in the parking lot of the exclusive Beverly Center shopping mall in Beverly Hills. Burton was the protégé of hip hop crooner Akon. His murder was allegedly tied to a beef that had its roots in Georgia.
May 15, 2011 – L.A. rapper Montae (M-Bone) Talbert is killed in a drive-by shooting in front of an Inglewood, California liquor store. Talbert was part of the Cali Swag District famous for the “Teach Me How To Dougie” song and dance craze.
November 10, 2011 – San Francisco rapper Markeise (Killa Keise) Henry is shot to death while driving on Interstate 80 in Vallejo.
September 23, 2013 – L.A. rapper Kevin (Flipside) White, a founding member of the OFTB Gang rap group and one-time recording artist on the Death Row label, is shot to death in front of a private residence near the Nickerson Gardens housing projects in Watts.
February 2, 2015 – Bay Area rapper Dominic (The Jacka) Newton of the rap group Mob Figaz is killed in East Oakland. Newton was shot in the head as a crowd of people congregated by a van parked on a residential street.
September 23, 2015 – Chicago rapper Marquese (Wolf Da Boss) Tann, a member of Chief Keef‘s Glo Gang, is killed in a Los Angeles marijuana dispensary robbery-homicide alongside Crips gangbanger Terrance (Bubble Up) Brown, the reputed driver in Tupac Shakur’s murder. Tann was managing a dispensary in L.A. backed by Chief Keef while trying to get his solo rap career off the ground.
October 21, 2017 — L.A. rapper Roberto (Blackie Fontana) Diaz is shot in an altercation at a block party in the San Gabriel Valley.
March 31, 2019 — L.A. rapper Ermias (Nipsey Hussle) Asghedom is gunned down outside his Marathon Clothing store in South Central just a little more than a year removed from releasing his Grammy-nominated studio album debut Victory Lap (Atlantic Records). The socially-conscious Nipsey Hussle was connected to the Rollin 60s Crips gang set.
The post No California Love: West Coast Hip Hop Murder Timeline (1993-2019) appeared first on The Gangster Report.