While rap is and always will be woven into the fabric of America, some of the music genre's
biggest stars have tragically been taken from us too soon, leaving behind legacies, and
music that will never be forgotten by their legions of fans.
These are the rappers we lost in 2020.
Brooklyn rapper Nick Blixky, real name Nickalus Thompson, was shot and killed outside a building
near Prospect Park on May 10th.
He was 21.
According to a NBC News report, Blixky was shot in the buttocks and torso and was found
unconscious by emergency workers.
He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
A parolee named Caliph Glean was later named in court documents as the lead suspect in
Thompson's death, but he was charged with illegally possessing ammunition — not murder.
The rising hip hop star had a single titled "Drive The Boat" with more than 2 million
views on YouTube.
Hours before his death, Blixky announced on Instagram that his first mixtape, "Different
Timin" was set to be released next month.
On April 6th, 2020, Los Angeles rapper Mac P Dawg, or Joshua Galvez, was shot and killed
in Koreatown.
He was 24.
An unidentified female victim was in stable condition at a local hospital at the time
of the report.
An LAPD spokeswoman told The Wrap that the shooter walked up and fired multiple rounds
that struck both victims, then fled.
Mac P Dawg is best known for his song, "Let Me Know," and his collaborations with Shoreline
Mafia on tracks like "Half N Half" and "Breakdown," among others.
Shortly after Mac P Dawg's death, his friend and Shoreline Mafia member, Fenix Flexin,
released a track called "RIP Mac P Dawg" to honor the fallen rapper.
Brooklyn rapper KJ Balla, otherwise known as Kennedy Joseph Noel, was shot in the chest
in the borough's East New York neighborhood on May 22nd, 2020.
The 23-year-old was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
No arrests have been made in his death.
A man who police hoped to question in the case was shot and killed the following month
in a drive-by shooting, and one of Noel's friends was named as the driver of the getaway
car.
According to the Daily Mail, KJ Balla was best known for his songs, "Switch the Game,"
"Strangers," and "Cookin' Up."
His latest single, "Back To Back," was released just a month before his death.
The rising rapper had over 800,000 streams on Spotify at the time of his passing, and
was also a co-founder of From Nothing Records.
On November 6th, 2020, 26-year-old Chicago rapper King Von was shot and killed outside
a hookah lounge in downtown Atlanta.
Atlanta police told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that King Von, whose real name was Dayvon
Daquan Bennett, was shot in the parking lot after a fight between two groups of men.
Two off-duty officers, who were working security at a club, intervened.
"Two groups of individuals got into a physical altercation.
That physical altercation escalated into an exchange of gunfire."
It took three days for police to arrest and charge Timothy Leeks with Bennett's murder.
Leeks was also hospitalized with a gunshot wound at the time of his arrest.
King Von had just released his third studio album, Welcome to O-Block, a month prior to
his death.
On November 11th, 2020, Dallas rapper MO3 was shot and killed during an altercation
on Interstate 35.
He was 28.
A CBS affiliate in the Dallas-Fort Worth area reported that MO3, who was known off-stage
as Melvin Noble, had been driving north, got out of his vehicle and began running south
when the gunman approached.
The rapper was killed after the suspect chased him, firing multiple rounds before driving
off.
A bystander was also shot.
MO3 died at a local hospital.
Just under a month later, on Dec. 9, Dallas Police announced that a 22-year-old named
Kewon Dontrell White was charged in MO3's death.
Noble's debut album, Shottaz Reloaded, was released in 2016, and his fifth album, Badazz
MO3, was released in 2020.
San Francisco rapper Lil Yase, whose real name Alexander Mark Antonyyo Jr., was shot
multiple times over Thanksgiving weekend near the East Dublin BART station.
He died at the hospital of multiple gunshot wounds, according to Fox affiliate KTVU 2.
He was 26.
A Dublin police spokesman said that he did not think the shooting was random.
More than a month later, in late December, nobody had been charged in the death.
According to USA Today, the rapper's biggest hit was the single "Mad" with Shoreline Mafia,
which had more than 2.1 million streams on Spotify and nearly a million views on YouTube.
On November 5th, 2020, Braxton "Brax" Baker's mother, Letricia Loftin Russell, announced
that the Virginia-based rapper and social media influencer had passed away at the age
of 21.
The specific date and cause of her death is not known.
In an Instagram post, Russell wrote,
"Our angel, Braxton Blue.B Baker has ascended.
At the time of her ascendance she laid in sacred form.
There were no scratches, there were no bruises, her internal and external being was completely
pure.
It was a spiritual release.
God retrieved the angel He loaned us."
Her mother went on to say that at the time of her death, Baker, quote, "was in spiritual
retreat" and in the process of, quote, "composing two albums and three novels."
In a 2018 interview with S, Baker spoke about what she hoped to achieve as an artist, saying,
"My role is to create art straight from my heart.
For I know that art will be pure, poetic, powerful, and healing.
All I want to do is help the world heal.
That's when things will begin to shift."
On January 1st, 2020, rapper Lexii Alijai was found dead in a downtown Minneapolis hotel
room.
She was 21.
Less than a month later, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office revealed that her
cause of death was due to an accidental overdose of fentanyl and alcohol.
The rap artist, whose real name was Alexis Alijai Lynch, was an ascending star with over
100,000 SoundCloud streams and was also featured on the song "Jealous" from Kehlani's 2015
Grammy-nominated album, You Should Be Here.
Jessica Owen, Lexii Alijai's mother, told the Star Tribune that the young rapper was
scheduled to work in the studio on the day of her death and had planned some upcoming
releases.
5th Ward Weebie, a pioneer of New Orleans bounce music, died in the hospital due to
complications related to surgery for a ruptured artery on January 9th, 2020, The Times-Picayune
reported.
He was 42.
In addition to an appearance on Drake's 2018 hit "Nice for What," Weebie, whose real name
was Jerome Cosey, was a local legend with songs like 2005's "F**k Katrina" and 2014's
"Let Me Find Out."
A member of the city's hip-hop subgenre bounce music from the late '90s on, the rapper-dancer's
death, which was mourned by countless fellow rappers like Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne, even
rattled City Hall.
Saying that his passing "broke [her] heart," New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell wrote in
an emotional Instagram post,
"He was an iconic personality, a New Orleans legend and a beloved friend.
He was the bounce king who showed us how to move, how to love and how to bring passion
and humanity to everything we do.
New Orleans has lost a cornerstone of our culture.
Our city will not be the same without his voice and his spirit."
Rapper Tre Koast, whose real name was Luc Treadwell, was killed in a shooting while
parked on his family's street in North Phoenix, Arizona on January 17, 2020.
He was 21.
The up-and-coming rap artist's body was found inside his Dodge Charger, which had been,
quote, "riddled with bullets."
According to police, an SUV was seen chasing the rapper's car, and then someone fired between
20 and 30 rounds.
In April 2020, police arrested Udith Karanath Joby and charged him with first degree murder
in connection with Treadwell's death.
The young rapper had released three lead singles in 2019: "This Year," "Safe Around," and "Got
It in Send It Out."
Most recently, he was featured on SoundCloud rapper Ki's "Gifted" that September.
Kennedy Bennett, Tre Koast's girlfriend of nearly two years, told ABC 15,
"Lucious was the love of my life, he was my best friend, my go-to."
"Music was his motivation, being in the studio was like his safe haven."
Rapper Dee Dave was fatally shot outside an apartment building in Baltimore, Maryland,
on January 24th, 2020.
He was 29.
Dee Dave, whose real name was David Leroy King Jr., is survived by his girlfriend and
10-year-old son.
Having also worked as a Baltimore Gas & Electric contractor, the rapper had been planning to
head out to Atlanta mere hours after his untimely death to play a show that may have been his
big break, his family explained to The Baltimore Sun.
Police later arrested Calvin Krasheen Fogg and charged him with first-degree murder and
attempted murder, in what the newspaper says was, quote, "a case of mistaken identity."
Fogg had reportedly shown up to confront an associate of King over a woman the two both
dated.
Somehow, King was shot and killed shortly before his associate was also shot, but his
associate survived.
Fogg has maintained his innocence and is awaiting trial.
Washington, D.C. rapper Big Booda was shot and killed while sitting in a vehicle on February
1st, 2020.
According to police, the rapper later died at a nearby hospital.
Big Booda, whose real name was Donelle Hodges, died just months after the loss of his mother.
He was 24 and is survived by his one-year-old son.
With an impressive local following, Big Booda's untimely passing came after his fourth mixtape,
Slide 2, dropped in late 2019.
According to one of his associates, Big Booda, quote, "truly wanted to get his life right
and leave the area."
Mourning his friend and business partner's death on Instagram, Rundwn Shard criticized
the senseless violence in the D.C. area, saying,
"Unfortunately this morning I got the call I lost my good man [and] business partner
BOODA!
At one point in time I used to be proud to say I was from [Southeast, D.C.]!
I no longer am.
I have been blessed to survive and punished at the [same] time to watch one single area
and also a city rob me of 90 [percent] of the people I grew up with and loved."
Brooklyn-born rapper Pop Smoke died in the early morning hours of February 19th, 2020,
after being shot in the Hollywood Hills, California home he'd reportedly rented.
He was 20.
According to law enforcement sources cited by TMZ, the artist, whose real name was Bashar
Barakah Jackson, had been attending a party when two men broke in and fired multiple shots
before fleeing.
The Los Angeles Times reported that police later charged two teenagers and two adults
with murder, citing robbery as the motive.
Pop Smoke's death came days after his second mixtape, Meet the Woo 2, landed at No. 7 on
the Billboard Top 200 list.
According to the Los Angeles Times, it was a sequel to his breakthrough mixtape, 2019's
Meet the Woo, which has garnered 280 million global streams and featured the rapper's hit,
"Welcome to the Party."
It was later remixed with Nicki Minaj.
Chynna Rogers, model and rising rap star out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died April
8th, 2020 of an accidental drug overdose.
According to Billboard, Rogers signed with Ford Models at age 14.
She then became friends with A$AP Mob founder A$AP Yams, who inspired her to pursue a career
in music.
Rogers struggled with an opiate addiction that she examined on her 2016 mixtape, Ninety.
She also discussed her drug dependency with Vibe in 2018, saying,
"I felt crazy.
I didn't want to be a statistic.
I didn't want to go out that way and people be like, 'I told you so,' or glamorize it
[drugs] because I don't feel like that.
[...] It was nerve-wracking to be open, but when you see how many more people who are
dealing with the same thing, it's good to have some kind of example of someone you didn't
expect to be going through it."
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Administration's 24/7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.