The hip hop community is mourning another deceased MC. On Saturday (January 24), several reports emerged stating that the South Carolina rapper 18 Veneno was shot and killed.
Until this report, no one in the rapper’s family confirmed the cause of death, despite several online reports. Even so, many tributes came from artists who were close to Winnsboro, South Carolina spitta. One of these artists is producer Jetsonmade, also a native of South Carolina. In his post, Jetsonmade shows love to the 18-year-old rapper and also includes an 18-year-old video playing one of his songs in the back seat of a car.
18veno started taking his rap career seriously when he was in 9th grade. Last year, 18 abandoned its debut project Pablo, which was inspired by his childhood nickname and the boss himself, Pablo Escobar. The project, which contains 11 tracks, puts the skill of 18 on full display and features only rapper PG RA. Pablo features prominent songs like “1942” and “Slugs”, the latter was the last song he promoted in his history on Instagram.
The death of 18veno is another reminder of the tragic armed violence that continues to take the lives of prominent artists. Just last year, other artists like the Dallas Mo3 rapper, Chicago rapper King Von and New York’s Pop Smoke himself died after suffering fatal gunshot wounds.
Pop Smoke’s parents recently spoke out against the armed violence that took their son’s life. In PSA released on Friday (January 22), Audrey and Greg Jackson opened up about the loss of their son, Bashar, in the video created thanks to a partnership with the Entertainers 4 Education Alliance / I WILL GRADUATE program.
“Because of armed violence, I will never see my son run in front of our steps, going up two at a time,” says Ms. Jackson in the video. “He will never take my hands and dance with me again. He doesn’t come into my room and does a muscle pose in the mirror. Armed violence destroys families. It must stop. “