The Assassination of Drakeo the Ruler

“Drakeo was 28 with an incandescent future ahead: He was supporting his son, mother, and paying his sister’s college tuition. Whoever bears responsibility for his murder did more than kill one man. They’ve deprived hip-hop and pop culture of a rare creative vanguard pushing sound and style forward in a landscape glutted with pastiche and revival. They snatched away a living symbol, who triumphed over incommensurable abuses dealt by the system. But perhaps that was part of the point.”