Yes another rapper is dead... shot down well before his prime. It's a story that hip-hop seemed like it was almost ready to outgrow. There hasn't been a marquis rap homicide since rapper Proof of D-12 died in a hail of bullets in a gritty Detroit afterhours club last year. But as of early this week, Dipset affiliate and mixtape standout Stack Bundles is laying in the morgue, and he didn't die of old age. Dude was just 24. He caught two bullets--one in the head, and one in the neck. And another life is wasted. It's a sad story and, of course, details are still emerging. But what other genre has to deal with this shit so often? Why are rappers proned to getting shot so much, yet the police NEVER solve those cases. The nostalgia is bothering me. Some of us music journalists have covered this story one too many times. When are folks going to wake up and stop shooting each other over drama and verbal conflict? The fact that he was an MC has nothing to do with it.
Check out a particularly moving yet academic write up on it from the Village Voice -- Jonathan Cunningham
