Last year, an interviewer asked an Atlanta rapper a candid question: Why do you keep getting shot?
It was fair to ask Yung Mazi, a 31-year-old Conyers resident with the given name Jibril Abdur-Rahman. He claimed he’d been shot 10 times, and the interview with DJ Smallz was to promote a mixtape Abdur-Rahman named “Physical Therapy” because he’d just recovered from a shooting.
“I might walk around with a quarter million dollars’ worth of jewelry on,” the rapper said. He also suggested his light skin tone made people resent him.
Whatever the cause, he was shot for the last time Sunday night.
He fell dead in the heart of Kirkwood on Hosea L. Williams Drive, just yards from the Atlanta Police Department’s Zone 6 station. It happened shortly before 9 p.m. as he left Urban Pie pizza, Channel 2 Action News reported.
Police haven’t revealed if they’ve identified a motive or any suspects.
Fans, friends and collaborators, including fellow Atlantans Rich Homie Quan and Young Thug, lamented Abdur-Rahman on social media, expressing hurt for the family the young father leaves behind.
The rapper’s brother, Luqman Abdur-Rahman, said the family would rather not comment on the case.
“We’re praying for him and all involved,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a phone call Monday, asking for privacy.
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
The shooting shocked many in Kirkwood, a neighborhood which is generally considered safer than other parts of town and, according to police, keeps getting safer. In November, police said Zone 6 had the lowest number of reported crimes in Atlanta.
Christian Enterkin, who lives a few blocks from the scene, said she was furious to have such a shooting happen in the neighborhood. She said she heard gunfire all night and she sent a reporter a picture of shells she said were found in the street Monday.
Others weren’t as shaken because of Kirkwood’s overall record and suggestion that Abdur-Rahman could’ve been targeted, not chosen at random.
The rapper himself spoke of being hunted.
In 2015, he released a video from a hospital bed.
“Public Service Announcement…from my legs,” he said, agitated but still defiant. “My legs done had enough. So, tell your shooters start aiming for some (expletive) that’s gonna kill somebody.”
Over the next few months, he posted on social media about learning to walk. He recorded videos of himself speaking to the camera, normally lying down.
By December 2016, he was getting out more.
He went to a Buckhead Waffle House, where a gunman followed.
A police report describes the man walking into the restaurant and without a word opening fire on the rapper and then leaving. The rapper told police he’d never seen the assailant before.
The report lists nothing stolen from Abdur-Rahman. (Atlanta police didn’t respond Monday when asked if there had been arrests in that case.)
After arriving at the hospital that day, the rapper turned to Twitter for another update:
“God made me bulletproof.”
RELATED: Home invasion turns out to be deadly gang-related attack
RELATED: Woman dragged outside busy Howell Mill shopping center after purse snatching
RELATED: Mom: Son killed by DeKalb cops wasn't a 'thug'; he was a troubled vet
RELATED: Detective: Mom told lies about baby's hot car death — then broke down
About the Authors
