As the host of Hip Hop Homicides, Van Lathan receives an inside look at some of the culture’s most notorious deaths. From King Von to Pop Smoke to XXXTentacion, production sits down with loved ones and investigators to attempt to reconcile Hip Hop tragedies. The podcaster recently caught up with VladTV for an extensive interview, and during the chat, Lathan was asked about the most shocking thing he’s learned from being attached to the series.
“How much the internet is getting people killed,” he said. “Without a doubt.”
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The rising influence of social media has been picked apart by professionals. Investigators reportedly claimed that Pop Smoke’s killers were able to find his location after the rapper posed in front of the home he was renting.
“I was profoundly changed by doing Hip Hop Homicides,” Lathan continued. “I talked to eight mothers, a father, I talked to several people’s kids.” Further, he added, “I just see the pain that a lot of this stuff causes.”
Read More: 50 Cent Threatened With Lawsuit Over “Hip Hop Homicides”
“So, for me, the reason why I say the internet is because there’s scorecards now,” said Lathan. “And in a lot of our cases, if the internet wasn’t a suspect, it was an accomplice. It was the place where everybody was goading one another, it was a place where you would get the clout. It was the audience that pushes your buttons to go and do something or have something done to you.”
He additionally clarified that he wasn’t “blaming the internet for the demise of these artists. Lathan recognized that the issues that lead to violent acts such as these existed long before the world wide web.
“What I’m saying is, I really didn’t realize how much we would be talking about tweets. How much we were gonna be talking about people that dropped their location.”
Check out more from Van Lathan on VladTV above.