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Proof joins a lengthening list of murdered rappers

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.
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