Home » Latest » Celebrity » These Rappers Sadly Passed Away In 2018

These Rappers Sadly Passed Away In 2018

4

90 0 Celebrity

8.8

SaveSavedRemoved 4

2018 took an unusually brutal toll on hip-hop’s rising class, claiming seven young artists to gunfire, illness, and one unthinkable stunt gone wrong.

By the time the calendar turned to November, the genre had already buried breakout street rappers, a battle-rap legend, and one of its most gifted young voices. Some died in drive-by shootings before they ever got a national deal. Others succumbed to cancer, heart failure, or a music-video stunt that ended in a plane crash. Nicki Swift’s video “These Rappers Sadly Passed Away In 2018” runs through each case, and the details are worth sitting with.

• Pittsburgh’s Jimmy Wopo, 21, was shot dead in a drive-by in the Hill District on June 18, 2018 — the same day XXXTentacion was killed in Florida.
• Atlanta artist A1 Lil Tony, 20, was fatally shot outside a southwest Atlanta apartment complex in May 2018, while Brooklyn’s Phanelli, 26, was gunned down in Queens that July.
• Mac Miller, 26, was found unresponsive at his Studio City home on September 7, 2018, just weeks after releasing his fifth album, Swimming.

The Gun Violence That Cut Down Rising Voices

Jimmy Wopo, born Travon Smart, had built real momentum behind his single “Elm Street” and his ties to Wiz Khalifa’s Taylor Gang before he was killed. He was riding in an SUV in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on June 18, 2018, when shooters opened fire in a drive-by that ended his life at 21. That same day, Florida rapper XXXTentacion was fatally shot during a robbery — a grim coincidence that made June 18 one of the darkest single days hip-hop saw all year.

Two other emerging artists met similar fates. Antonio Montgomery, who performed as A1 Lil Tony, was shot and killed outside an apartment complex in southwest Atlanta in May 2018 at just 20 years old. Two months later, Brooklyn rapper Devon Robinson, known as Phanelli, was shot and killed in Queens, New York, in July 2018 at 26. Neither had reached the national profile of Wopo, but both were building local followings when their lives were cut short.

Battle Rap and the South Lose Two Veterans

Not every death in the video came from violence. Terrence LeFlore, better known in battle-rap circles as Big T, was a Chicago fixture and Ultimate Rap League (URL) veteran famous for his trademark vocal sound effects and years of memorable battles. He died in May 2018 from a heart attack tied to ongoing health complications, at age 32 — the same age as Dallas rapper Corey Struggs, who performed as C Struggs and had built a reputation through collaborations with Rick Ross. Struggs died in August 2018 after a battle with metastatic cancer.

A Stunt Gone Wrong in British Columbia

Canadian stunt rapper Jon James McMurray, who performed as Jon James, died in one of the year’s strangest and most avoidable tragedies. On October 20, 2018, while filming a music video in Vernon, British Columbia, McMurray attempted an airplane wing-walking stunt that sent the aircraft into a spiral before he could deploy his parachute. He was 34.

Two artists, both 32 — Big T and C Struggs — died within three months of each other in 2018, one from heart failure, the other from cancer.

Mac Miller’s Death Overshadowed a Career Peak

No death in the video hit harder than Mac Miller’s. Born Malcolm McCormick in Pittsburgh, Miller had spent a decade evolving from a mixtape rapper into one of hip-hop’s most respected songwriters and producers, praised by critics for the emotional honesty running through albums like The Divine Feminine and Swimming. He was found unresponsive at his Studio City, Los Angeles home on September 7, 2018, and pronounced dead shortly after — just weeks removed from the release of Swimming, an album many critics considered his most fully realized work. He was 26.

Miller’s death drew comparisons to other young artists lost too soon, a pattern the industry has revisited again and again — see the outpouring after Avicii’s death the same year, or the long shadow such losses cast over artists like LL Cool J, who’s spoken candidly about the toll the industry takes on its own.

Seven names, seven different causes, one brutal year — and by the time Nicki Swift’s video went up, hip-hop still had two more months of 2018 left to get through.