Lil Marlo was one of the most respected dudes in the Atlanta rap game.
He came up hustling in the streets,
but eventually signed a deal with QC
and even convinced Lil Baby to hop in the booth.
He had the skills and connections to take it far,
but in 2020 he was tragically shot and killed in his hometown.
This is the story of Lil Marlo.
Marlo came up on the westside of Atlanta
in the Bowen Homes housing projects.
Atlanta has a lot of dangerous hoods,
but the Bowen Homes was one of the worst.
The violence got so bad in the area
that in 2009
the city just tore the whole project down.
Growing up in such a wild area,
Marlo had to learn how to adapt quick.
He said “I know how to survive in the jungle.
Home of the murderers and them drug dealers.”.
Marlo’s biological mom was always in his life,
but he mostly lived with his stepmom
and she started kicking him game at an early age.
Marlo was always surrounded by the streets,
but he had rappers around him too.
The legendary Atlanta rapper Shawty Lo was from the same hood,
and Marlo said he knew him since he was like three years old.
Back in the day Marlo didn’t even think about being a rapper,
instead he hopped off the porch and started hustling in the streets.
He was always hanging around older dudes who were already active,
and Marlo learned how to move by watching them.
That’s also how he always stayed out of jail.
Most dudes who get active early end up going in and out of jail,
but Marlo said he was too smart to get caught up like that.
If he saw someone in the hood fumble the bag and get locked up,
he’d pay attention to where they went wrong and avoid making the same mistake.
By the time he was a teenager,
Marlo was already making good money in the streets.
So in the 9th grade he decided to drop out and go full time hustlin.
Back in 2018 he told DJ Smallz Eyes
I-I used to have thought like...
Damn I wish I was in school.
I ended up going like...
to like a little program
and getting like a little G.E.D.
and like show my momma I would try something for you.
but after that Marlo was right back in the streets.
He actually tried to go legit one time doing construction.
His uncle got him the job,
but Marlo quit after the first day
because he was making too much money doing his own thing.
Even though he never thought about hopping in the booth,
Marlo was always surrounded by rappers.
Young Thug was always trying to get him in the studio,
and Big Bank eventually got him to lay down a track
by tricking him into it.
Big Bank has a lot of influence in the Atlanta rap scene.
He runs Duct Tape Entertainment,
and has connections to dudes like Future, Young Thug, and Playboi Carti.
Big Bank is so powerful in the city
that a lot of people call him the Godfather of Atlanta.
P from Quality Control also knew Marlo
and wanted to get him in the game.
Marlo wouldn’t listen to any of them though,
so one day Big Bank picked him up
and didn’t even tell him where they was going.
Big Bank pulled up at the studio,
and at first Marlo thought they were there just to record for Big Bank.
But when they got inside, Big Bank told Marlo to pick out a beat.
Marlo finally hopped in the booth and laid down a track,
and that’s when everything changed for him,
Lil Baby, and the whole Atlanta rap game.
Lil Baby and Marlo had been homies for years.
They was both heavy in the streets,
and everyone around wanted them to hop in the booth.
They was both already making good money too,
so neither one of them ever thought about getting into the rap game.
But after Marlo laid down his first track,
he called Baby up immediately and sent him the song.
Hearing his homie drop a song like that
convinced Baby to finally hop in the booth too,
and now he’s one of the biggest rappers in the game.
Even though everyone was telling Marlo to stick with the rapping,
he decided to fall back for a year and keep hustling in the streets.
Lil Baby really liked raping
and was ready to leave the streets behind,
but Marlo was still there pushing baby to keep going with it.
Seeing Baby blow up out the gate
made Marlo realize he could take his own music career far too.
He started working more and more in the studio,
and in 2017
he dropped a collab tape with Lil Baby called 2 The Hard Way.
Marlo signed with Quality Control
and started dropping solo projects too.
He didn’t blow up as fast Baby,
but everyone in the Atlanta was paying attention.
Marlo was working with huge artists like Lil Yachty and YFN Lucci,
and one day Offset walked in the studio
while Marlo was laying down a track with City Girls and hopped on it without even asking.
Even though he was trying to leave the streets behind,
the journey wasn’t easy for Marlo -
and in 2017 his daughter tragically passed away at just six years old.
It’s not clear exactly what happened,
but in 2019
Marlo did an interview with B High Atl
and told him
You gotta stand up...
you know, they see me,
break down, you know my family ain't gonna break down.
Yeah.
So you know, I gotta be the man.
Losing a child is one of the worst things somebody can go through,
but Marlo said he couldn’t let it keep him down for too long.
He had too many people relying on him,
so he had to process it by himself and get right back to work.
In February 2020
he dropped his album 1st & 3rd,
which racked up millions of streams
and had features from Young Thug, Future, Gucci Mane, and more.
Marlo was finally starting to get closer to a mainstream hit,
but then just a few months later
he was shot and killed in his own city.
In July 2020,
the Atlanta police responded to a call about a car accident
on Interstate 285 in the downtown area.
When they pulled up,
they found Marlo dead in his car from gunshot wounds.
The cops said it was a targeted hit,
and according to reports
Marlo’s whip got hit with over 100 shots.
A candlelight vigil was held for Marlo,
and whoever took him out
allegedly threatened to come through and shoot it up.
A video of the scene shows Marlo’s aunt talking to a crowd of people,
then someone else says
Uh-uh excuse me,
my grandma on the phone, she said
they finna come shoot it up so...
The crowd started to panic at the news,
but it doesn’t seem like anyone actually pulled up and started anything.
After Marlo died,
rumors started flying that Lil Baby was actually the target of the hit
and that he had a $50K bag on his head.
Social media went crazy with all kinds of theories,
but Baby hopped online to squash them.
DJ Akademiks posted about the rumors,
and Baby commented a bunch of laughing emojis, then wrote
“Like com on bro …
certain s*** ain’t to be posted.”.
And on Twitter he said
“When In the streets know what comes with this s***
#longliveru.
If you f*** wit me don’t post no weak ass fake news.”.
Lil Baby also mourned Marlo on IG
and said his death made him cry for the first time in eight years.
Marlo’s homie Jacoby Hudson said
that he loved his hood too much,
and that’s why he was killed.
He said “He didn’t let the music save him...
He cared about people and he took care of people.
He loved too many people,
and his loyalty is probably what got him killed.”.
A reporter from Atlanta named George Chidi went on VladTV
and talked about the situation.
People were trying to link another rapper from the city named Babydrill to Marlo’s death,
but according to Chidi
that’s probably not what went down.
Marlo came from a massive family with eight kids,
and he wasn’t the only one who was involved with the streets.
One of his brothers is serving a life sentence right now,
but Marlo never wanted to go into too many details about it.
And according to Chidi,
one of his other brothers might have gotten Marlo killed.
One of Marlo’s brothers caught a murder charge over some gang beef.
But when the case went to trial,
two of the prosecutor’s witnesses disappeared before they could testify.
Rumors say they went to Cali to avoid the whole situation,
but the entire case ended up getting dropped in the middle of the trial.
Cases get dismissed before they go to trial all the time,
but after a trial starts
it’s very rare that they don’t finish.
And according to Chidi,
Marlo might have been taken out in retaliation
for the dude his brother allegedly killed.
Right now it’s just rumors and speculation
and nothing has been proven.
Marlo wasn’t always airing his beef out on social media
and telling everyone about who he had problems with,
but if you’re in the street making money
you always gonna gonna be a target.
When he went on Off the Porch,
Marlo said he was ready to leave the streets behind
and go 100% on rap.
He knew that he needed to switch up how he moved,
so he started spending every day in the studio instead of on the block.
After Marlo died,
Lil Yachty told everyone
that they had just been working together until four in the morning.
He wanted to blow up and start making bags of rap like his homie Lil Baby,
and after that
he wanted to level up and start investing his cash in other businesses.
It was clear that he had a solid plan,
but unfortunately he passed way too soon.
Marlo was a talented dude
who had a lot of love in his hometown,
but the streets caught up to him before he could leave them behind for good.
His homies will carry on his legacy in their music,
but the rap game took another major loss when he was killed.
Rest in peace to Marlo.