The rapper Proof felt obligated to "the streets," friends said, so he stayed close to the world where he grew up to give back what he owed -- and he paid with his life.
The killing of Proof early on Tuesday morning highlights the ties that bolster rappers' careers while putting their lives in danger. The result has been a series of rap murders that underscores the increasingly perilous state of young black men in the US.
Proof earned himself wealth, fame, a spacious suburban home and his own recording studio as Eminem's sidekick and a member of the platinum-selling group D-12. But after an argument inside a Detroit after-hours club, police say, Proof fired the first shot in a gun battle that left him dead at 32.
Proof's friends say his allegiance to his hometown ghetto and his readiness for confrontation grew even as his success afforded him other options.
"These guys have to be out there, in some of the worst and wildest places," said Detroit entertainment executive Mark Hicks, who once managed Proof and D-12.
"That's where their hardcore audience is. Most of the guys who are hot resonate in the streets. And it's also where they will run into a lot of trouble. So in rap, just doing what it takes to be well-known puts you at risk," he said.
The club where Proof was shot in the head is on the same Eight Mile Road that he and Eminem made famous in movies and songs.
Proof joins a lengthening list of rap artists such as Run DMC's Jam Master Jay (shot dead in 2002 in a Queens, New York recording studio) and Scott La Rock (whose 1987 killing in the Bronx, New York was the first high-profile rap slaying) to die in their own communities.
And of course there are the twin saints of slain rappers: Tupac Shakur, who was doomed by his fascination with "thug life," and his counterpart Notorious B.I.G.
Davey D, a California-based radio personality, said that while money may change some rappers' material conditions, it often does nothing to transform their mindsets.
"You can still be a million-dollar thug," he said. "And it doesn't insulate you if you decide to go back to your old neighborhood and places you grew up."
Many rappers also feel the need to prove that despite their wealth and success they aren't pampered.
"If your image is predicated on boldness, on in-your-face lyrics, if you're in a situation like that, and it gets out that you did back down, it doesn't help your sales and your image," said sociologist Michael Hunt, director of the Ralph Bunche Center for African-American Studies at UCLA.
But rappers and their audiences don't bear all the blame, some say, pointing to a music industry that encourages rappers to "keep it real."
"If I went to jail tomorrow, I'd have to take a long, hard look at myself, at improving my lifestyle," Davey D said.
"In the music business, I don't have to do that, even on the executive level. So you can go in and out of jail and as long as you are still producing [good music], you can keep on doing that," he said.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
RSS