The Tragedy of Hip Hip part five

I’m not going to be able to do the investigative journalism to get anywhere with this one. All I have are thoughts. And the sorrow still remains.

On August 27, 1987, the summer after I graduated from high school, the great DJ Scott La Rock was murdered. This was the first high profile hip hop murder and it’s positively disgusting and almost unbelievable how many would die the same way in the decades to come. The murder of Scott La Rock inspired KRS-ONE to record and to try unsuccessfully to start a Stop the Violence movement.

This is going to sound cold but I remember the violence and death growing up in Atlanta. When Stop the Violence came out I was a freshman in college and I remember having a conversation with some members of the football team from Los Angeles in the studio of our college radio station. We were laughing at how KRS-ONE went from bragging about his 9mm going bang to demanding we Stop the Violence. After his friend got shot in the back of the head it wasn’t so cool anymore.

If I had a theory I’d write it. Some say it was part of a beef over a female. Ced Gee claims it was not a crime of passion but rather a business move orchestrated by B-Boy records. Scott La Rock was pushing to move to Warner Bros. and using their influence and power and money and lawyers to overwrite the B-Boys contract so Boogie Down Productions could own the full rights to their music. The case was never solved.

He was a bright academic as well as a talented basketball player. He went to Our Saviour Lutheran School for his secondary education and went on to graduate from Castleton University in Vermont with a degree in business administration. I’d love to be in touch with anyone who knew him in Vermont (hmu in the comments). Then he went on to be part of hip hop history on the brilliant Criminal Minded lol. Before joining BDP he worked at the Franklin Armory Men’s Shelter.

Part one here: https://birdboyblizzard.music.blog/2022/05/28/the-tragedy-of-hip-hop-part-one/