The world of rap has been particularly struck by tragedy, seemingly more so than other musical
genres. Too many rappers have died too early, at the peak of their fame and influence, before
they ever got a chance to get old. Here are some rappers who died tragically.
Discovered in a mall by super-producer Jermaine Dupri, Chris "Mac Daddy" Kelly and Chris "Daddy
Mac" Smith, a.k.a. Kris Kross, were all of 13 when they topped the Billboard Hot 100
in 1992 with "Jump," a song built on a killer hook and the rapid-fire flow of the very young
rappers. Kris Kross scored again with hits like "Warm It Up" and "Alright" before splitting
up in 1996, but not before inspiring millions to imitate the duo by wearing their clothes
backwards.
On May 1, 2013, Kelly was discovered unresponsive at his Atlanta home. Despite a transfer to
a local hospital, Kelly passed away later that same day. In July 2013, the Fulton County
medical examiner released the results of an autopsy. The rapper had a number of controlled
substances in his body, including heroin, cocaine, alcohol, prescription painkillers,
and Valium, several of which a friend told police he'd consumed the night before his
death. All those things made for a fatal combination, and Kelly died at age 34.
Mobb Deep came onto the scene strong in the '90s with The Infamous and Hell on Earth,
landmarks of both the very fruitful decade for hardcore rap and for the East Coast, New
York-based scene in particular. Mobb Deep was a duo, consisting of Havoc and Prodigy.
Affiliated with the influential 50 Cent and his G-Unit collective, Mobb Deep experienced
a resurgence in popularity in the mid-2000s, although it was interrupted when Prodigy had
to serve a three-year prison sentence for weapons charges. Forever turning his darker
experiences into art, Prodigy later published commissary kitchen: my infamous prison cookbook,
a collection of jailhouse recipes, on his own imprint.
According to The Independent, Prodigy was diagnosed as an infant with sickle cell anemia,
a painful, chronic disorder where red blood cells take on a crescent shape, which slows
down and obstructs blood flow. That can lead to extensive and frequent medical treatment,
and Prodigy sought relief during a Las Vegas tour stop in 2017. While under a doctor's
care for his sickle cell anemia, Prodigy choked on an egg and died. The Mobb Deep star was
42.
After the gangsta rap era came and went, and before the rise of Eminem and 50 Cent, there
was no rapper more popular with a more indelible impression on hip-hop than DMX. With his distinctively
guttural, throaty, and weighty voice that sold the material and conveyed a troubled
and conflicted past, the man born Earl Simmons dominated late '90s and early 2000s rap.
DMX was versatile, too, energetically barking his way through anthems to challenges on wax
to self-assured explorations of culture and identity. His albums sold extremely well at
his peak, with five DMX records in a row topping the Billboard 200 between 1998 and 2003.
According to sources who spoke to TMZ, on the evening of April 2, 2021, DMX overdosed
on drugs and suffered a heart attack. Paramedics were called to the rapper's home, and it took
around 30 minutes to resuscitate. DMX was on life support for nearly a week, at which
point no brain function had returned. On April 9, 2021, DMX died at the age of 50.
Pop Smoke brought the Brooklyn drill subgenre of hip-hop to the masses. According to The
Ringer, the style melds spooky British production techniques with trap beats and often dark
lyrics. In 2019, he released his first major project, Meet the Woo, with the follow-up
Meet the Woo 2 debuting in February 2020 and hitting No. 7 on the Billboard album chart.
His star was on the rise, and he'd go on to work with heavy hitters like Travis Scott
and Nicki Minaj and also score numerous top 20 singles.
Sadly, Pop Smoke, born Bashar Jackson, wouldn't live to see much of his phenomenal success.
According to The New York Times, the rapper had relocated from New York to a home in Hollywood
he rented from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Teddi Mellencamp. It was there
in the early hours of February 19, 2020, that a group of men allegedly broke in and shot
the rapper. A few hours later, he died at a local hospital. Pop Smoke was 20 years old.
There weren't many rappers who made a bigger impact on hip-hop in the late 2010s than Juice
WRLD. In 2018, he released his first album, Goodbye & Good Riddance, and it reached No.
4 on the Billboard album chart while also generating the huge hit singles "Lucid Dreams"
and "All the Girls Are the Same." His second studio release, Death Race for Love, performed
even better, cresting the Billboard 200. Juice WRLD was a prolific musician, releasing an
additional nine EPs and two mixtapes, all before he turned 21 years old.
Then, less than a week after he hit that milestone birthday, it was all over for Juice WRLD.
According to TMZ, the rapper exited a private plane at Chicago's Midway Airport in December
2019. While walking through the terminal, he suffered a seizure, with blood reportedly
coming out of his mouth by the time paramedics could treat him. A few hours later, he was
pronounced dead at a hospital. The rapper, whose music was laced with references to his
use and abuse of substances, died from an overdose of codeine and oxycodone, according
to the Cook County Medical Examiner.
While he'd find national success as part of a popular rap collective, the rapper who called
himself Proof was a local legend in the Detroit rap scene of the 1990s. According to AllMusic,
he hosted and competed in rap battles and even won the 1999 "Unsigned Hype" award bestowed
by hip-hop magazine The Source. It was in this world that he and Eminem became friends
and collaborators, and the latter would later ask Proof, also known as DeShaun Holton, to
join his rap collective, D12. He participated on two D12 albums in the 2000s, Devil's Night
and D12 World, released the solo record Searching for Jerry Garcia, and played the role of daunting
battle rapper Lil' Tic in Eminem's lightly fictionalized biopic 8 Mile.
In the early hours of April 11, 2006, according to Rolling Stone, a fight broke out at 3C,
a club in the Eight Mile area of Detroit. Police arrived at the illegal, after-hours
institution after receiving reports of shots fired. According to Billboard, police say
that Mario Etheridge fatally shot Proof after the rapper shot and killed Etheridge's cousin
after a disagreement over a pool game. Proof was pronounced dead on arrival at a local
hospital. He was 32 years old.
Raised in the Magnolia Projects of New Orleans, James Tapp, Jr., first adopted the stage name
Magnolia Slim. After he changed his name to Soulja Slim, he earned the attention of Master
P and his influential No Limit Records. His first LP for that company, Give It 2 'Em Raw,
hit No. 13 on the Billboard album chart.
A few years in prison for armed robbery meant a follow-up wouldn't come quickly, but Soulja
Slim reemerged in the 2000s. "Slow Motion," a collaboration with the rapper Juvenile,
went all the way to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2004. Unfortunately, Soulja
Slim had no idea that he'd topped the charts. It was released after his death. In November
2003, per WAFB-9, the rapper was shot to death outside of the New Orleans house he'd bought
for his mother. He was 26.
The Detroit-based rap trio Slum Village got its big break in 1998 when asked to be the
opening act on what was advertised as A Tribe Called Quest's final tour. The breakout star
of Slum Village was rapper and producer James Yancey, or Jay Dee, but more prominently known
as J Dilla. After releasing a Slum Village record in 2000, J Dilla went solo with Welcome
2 Detroit the following year. Around the turn of the millennium, J Dilla moonlighted as
one of the hottest producers in hip-hop and R&B, shepherding Common's Like Water for Chocolate,
D'Angelo's Voodoo, and projects for Macy Gray and Erykah Badu.
"A lot of em don't know that Dilla produced a lot of their favorite picks."
Toward the end of his life, J Dilla suffered from lupus, a painful autoimmune disease characterized
by widespread inflammation. He required the use of a wheelchair on some of his final concert
dates, and in February 2006, per Billboard, the rapper and producer died from complications
of the disease at the age of 32.
Raised on Long Island by educator parents, Gustav Ahr moved to Los Angeles and in 2015
became one of the first and most vocal voices of the SoundCloud rapper movement. Performing
and posting bedroom recordings on the streaming service as Lil Peep, his childhood nickname,
the rapper struck a nerve with his extremely personal songs about mental health issues
and other sensitive subjects, combining confessional hip-hop with sounds and backing tracks from
the worlds of emo and alternative rock. Lil Peep's career would ultimately last only about
two years and consist of numerous independently released recordings including the commercial
hit Come Over When You're Sober, Part 1.
On the evening of Nov. 15, 2017, Lil Peep was supposed to perform at a Tucson club called
The Rock. He was discovered in his tour bus, and he was pronounced dead on the scene, according
to The New York Times. A toxicology report later issued by the Pima County Office of
the Medical Examiner would rule that the rapper died from an accidental overdose of the anti-anxiety
drug Xanax combined with the powerful prescription painkiller fentanyl. Lil Peep was 21.