Live Nation has reportedly failed to get a series of lawsuits dropped in relation to the stabbing death of rapper Drakeo The Ruler at the Once Upon A Time In LA Festival. According to a report from Rolling Stone, A Los Angeles judge said in a key ruling Wednesday (January 11), that Drakeo‘s brother, Devante Caldwell, doesn’t have to show a “prior similar” attack happened at the Banc of California & Exposition, where the Once Upon A Time In LA Festival was held.
“The ruling represents the court’s recognition of Live Nation’s and the other defendants’ role in the injustice suffered by Drakeo, his family, and friends. We are one step closer to providing justice and closure to this horrific experience,” said Caldwell’s lawyer Jovan Blacknell.
Live Nation had previously claimed that state law held that the event corporation should be immunized from any liability in the backstage attack that resulted in Drakeo’s death. Their argument was that the attack was “unforeseeable” as no such events had ever previously taken place within the venue.
However, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Yolanda Orozco ruled that Caldwell had presented enough facts for the court to move forward with the case.
“Although the occurrence of a mob/gang attack may have occurred for the first time, defendants may nevertheless be held liable if the facts show that the danger was foreseeable and/or preventable,” she wrote. “The fact that defendants knew security would be needed for the event supports the finding that the performing artists’ safety was a concern for defendants and foreseeable to defendants.”
If nothing else proves that the US justice system desperately needs to be reworked, it’s this not-so-fun fact: In the same week that Watts rapper 03 Greedo came home from a nearly five-year prison bid for nonviolent offenses, the trial against his closest stylistic analog, Atlanta rapper Young Thug, began in Fulton County. Thug faces a litany of charges but all of them stem from just one evidentiary example: Thug’s own lyrics, in which he shouts out his label/crew, YSL, which now stands accused of being a street gang by Georgia state authorities. They argue that Thugger’s shout-outs constitute evidence of his membership in that gang — and even his leadership thereof.
Now, I’m not going to argue that either man is innocent. We just don’t know enough to say whether or not they’ve done the things they were accused of. A jury was convinced by apparently compelling evidence that Greedo did; a jury will have to be convinced the same for Thug. But Greedo was given five years for possession of a firearm in a state that otherwise promotes its open-carry laws as an advantage over other states’ more restrictive gun laws. And there is no way that any artist should be brought up on charges of racketeering just for rapping about their life and their business. The Johnny Cash comparison has been belabored to the point of beating a dead horse, but let’s face it; he was never indicted for shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die because everyone seems to get that this event was merely a lyrical device.
This week, Greedo released his first post-prison mixtape, the aptly-titled Free 03, produced by Mike Free. Although the timeline of its recording remains unclear, it appears to have been recorded at least in part during the flurry of activity that saw the Watts style-switcher collaborate extensively with a variety of producers to ensure he’d have enough material to bear out his sentence (almost, but not quite; he pretty much ran out of pre-recorded projects midway through the pandemic with his last album Load It Up Vol. 01 with Ron-Ron dropping in 2020). At least some of it sounds like it was recorded over a prison phone, much like Greedo’s frequent collaborator Drakeo The Ruler did with his own post-incarceration mixtape Thank You For Using GTL.
In fact, Drakeo makes an appearance on Free 03, on the song “No Free Features.” It’s a truly heartwrenching moment as you realize this could well be the last time we hear the Watts-bred duo on a record together, as Drakeo was murdered in late 2021, just months after concluding his own years-long nightmare encounter with the criminal justice system. That Drakeo spent two of the final three years of his life fighting similar charges to those currently faced by Young Thug hammers home this harrowing connection. Drakeo was never even convicted of a crime and was, in fact, acquitted of the original charges against him only to have new charges filed and his bail denied.
In a similar fashion, Young Thug was locked up for the better part of a year before his trial began this week, during which time the state shrewdly used a home raid to connect enough evidence to at least make something stick. Those charges, mainly amounting to firearm possession, are eerily reminiscent of those that got Greedo sentenced to over four years in prison. And while the content of Free 03 necessarily does not address the charges against him or his time inside, it ends on a chilling rumination, “If I Die” — which is especially spooky when you consider that Drakeo did so less than a year after his own release.
While the quality of Free 03 belies its likely rushed production process — for what it’s worth, the latter half is better, finding Greedo employing the slippery vocals that had set him apart from so much of the LA underground before his sentencing — it also highlights just what these aggressive sentences really cost. The one commodity you can’t get back is time; whatever financial setbacks are caused by derailing artists’ careers with extensive prison time and trumped-up charges, the true loss is time: Time that they could be helping their communities, as Thug did when he paid bail for dozens of Fulton County inmates for the holidays two years ago, time that they could be giving opportunities to their friends and admirers to escape the constraints of street life (YSL Records, gang or not, employed dozens of rappers, singers, and producers who might otherwise be out there causing real harm), and time they could be inspiring the next generation of aspiring artists to skip the street life entirely.
The fact is, even violent offenders — which the state has yet to prove most of the artists it’s targeted really are — deserve chances to at least try to make amends. They are more of a net positive to society generating income, engaging in philanthropy, and offering imperfect role models to fans than they are languishing in cells at a cost to the state. Meanwhile, there are thousands of inmates currently incarcerated for nonviolent offenses who aren’t artists of whom the same could be said. We latch onto the artists because their fame makes them obvious examples, but really, their plight is just a microcosm of the one faced by thousands of ordinary citizens every day. 03 free, but the time has come to free us all from the trap our prison industrial complex has boxed us into.
It’s been nearly a year since Drakeo The Ruler was tragically stabbed to death in Los Angeles, and while his fans continue to miss the “Talk To Me” hitmaker, his estate is doing their part to ensure his legacy lives on with his first posthumous album.
Keep The Truth Alive arrived at midnight on Friday (September 30) featuring 18 new tracks – the majority of which find Drakeo handling the beat by himself, although Ralfy the Plug did join him for “Suicide Dawn” and “Stop Me.”
As The Fader notes, many tracks on the project consist of bite-sized songs and skits, but the late lyricist’s rhymes are as poignant as ever, leaving plenty of mysteries for listeners to unravel with each stream.
Stream Drakeo The Ruler’s Keep The Truth Alive below, and tap back in with HNHH later for more hip-hop music updates.
Although Drakeo The Landlord was killed in December 2021 at his own show, a man claiming to be his former landlord is attempting to collect back rent from his estate.
According to documents obtained by TMZ, a landlord named Oliver Omidvar says he rented the home to Drakeo back in June of 2021. Payments for rent stopped coming into Omidvar in January 2022, a month after Drakeo’s death, however, Omidvar is still demanding $104,542.60 in back rent and alleged damages.
The lawsuit claims that the property was left with damage to electronics, skylights, and windows. Additionally, thousands of dollars were allegedly spent fixing plumbing and drywall, and adding new coats of paint on the walls.
“They let all these people in, and you’re not supposed to have all these people backstage. And your security is supposed to be in place,” Corniel said. “The whole program should have been orchestrated a lot better than what it was. And there should have been more protection. Even if you have metal detectors, even if you pat them down, you let those people come in there. You had more people come in than you were supposed to. And you allowed them to jump my son. You didn’t protect my son.”
“It is such a shame how much jealousy and envy can make people stoop to such low tactics to try to destroy another individual because of fame and progress,” she said. “When you start getting up there, people start getting intimidated. So, I believe, once his platform started going higher, people started getting upset.”
In his typical non-apologetic fashion, social activist and controversial online personality Charleston White took to social media to disrespect every street organization/gang known in the U.S.. The 52-year-old then went as far as cursing the names of fallen rappers who were associated with the aforementioned street gangs such as Nipsey Hussle, Drakeo The Ruler and King Von.
White, who is a former Crip from Texas, disassociated himself from the California-based gang when the family of the person he killed at age 14 forgave him for taking the life of their relative. In the above video, White holds up an assault rifle magazine while he declares, “Death to all Crips and Bloods. Death to all GDs and BDs. May they all die like King Von. May they al die like Drakeo The Ruler, May they all die like Nipsey Hussle.”
The lawsuit also names promotional partners Bobby Dee Presents and C3 Presents, as well as Banc of California Stadium owners Los Angeles Football Club. It cites the disaster at Astroworld the week before and accuses the promoters of negligence, claiming they did not place “the safety and wellbeing of its guests and its invited artists ahead of profits.”
On Tuesday, files were made public that show Live Nation arguing for negligence on the part of Caldwell’s brother Devante, as well as members of the brothers’ Stinc Team rap collective. In the demurrer obtained by Rolling Stone, Live Nation argue that they were not accountable for the “violent mob,” consisting of about 50 to 100 people with knives, that ambushed the rapper before he was supposed to take the stage. They also argued that no one “asked for additional security” or told promoters that Caldwell “faced threats and constant hostility from gang members.” Meanwhile, promoters argued that legally they were not required to prevent “third-party criminal conduct” since there were no “prior similar incidents.”
Drakeo The Ruler might be gone, but his legacy lives on. While he wasn’t yet a household name when he died late last year, Drakeo’s impact has become more evident every day in the months since through the rappers he influenced and the music he left behind. A prolific artist who released music almost as quickly as he created it, Drakeo’s got enough banked verses to keep posthumous releases flowing for the foreseeable future.
One of those verses appears on “Heartless,” a song from fellow LA rapper Bino Rideaux‘s newly released mixtape, Sorry 4 Tha Wait II. A sequel to the original 2019 Sorry 4 Tha Wait tape, the follow-up came out today via Do What You Love Records and Def Jam. Bino certainly qualifies as one of the rappers who carries on Drakeo’s torch, embracing an independent, DIY ethos and blending old school and contemporary LA sounds in his music.
In addition to Drakeo, Bino’s new tape also includes appearances from more of the Los Angeles area’s main attractions, including rising Compton rapper Kalan.FrFr, Roddy Ricch, another Hub City native, and Ty Dolla Sign, the unofficial heir to Nate Dogg’s hook crooner crown. You can check out “Heartless” above, the full tape here, and the video for “If You Ever” below.
