Bigger Than The Chicago Drill
“In the early hours of the morning on Friday, November 6, Dayvon Daquan Bennett, better known as the rapper King Von, was one of three men shot and killed during an altercation in Atlanta outside of a local hookah lounge,” Vulture’s Paul Thompson writes in King Von Was Building Something Bigger Than Chicago Drill. He Deserved to See It Through.
“A Chicago native, Von had moved to the city to further his career – Atlanta being, in some ways, the new capital of the hip-hop industry – and to avoid the harassment he said he faced in his home city from the Chicago police department and from personal enemies he accumulated over the years. Von was exactly one week removed from the release of his third album – the tense, cinematic Welcome to O’Block, set to be his breakthrough – for which there had been an album-release party on the night of his death. He was 26 and the father of two young children.”
“Von was born in 1994 near the Parkway Garden Homes, an area on Chicago’s South Side perhaps introduced to a national audience by Chief Keef, the drill prodigy also from an area known locally as the O-Block.
“Von went to the same high school as G Herbo, who would emerge as one of the breakout stars when the city’s drill music exploded in the early 2010s, and was childhood friends with another of that scene’s key players, Lil Durk.
“It was Durk who would later urge Von to take rap seriously and who, like Von, would eventually move from Chicago to Atlanta in part to stay out of trouble.
“Von’s life had long been beset by problems with the law – experiences that helped to shape him into a magnetic young artist. In the summer of 2014, he was charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder in connection to a shooting that had occurred that spring in Englewood. The charges were later dropped – but in this case, ‘later’ meant ‘after more than three years behind bars.’
“Von would later say he spent his time in prison doing little aside from reading, writing, and ruminating on his past.”
Click through for the rest.
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From the Beachwood, April 9, 2020:
ChicagoTube
King Von (Grandson Of David Barksdale) Could Be Chicago’s Next Up But He’s Not From 63rd.
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Revolt: King Von Posthumously Achieves Highest-Charting Album Debut.
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New York Daily News: Man Charged With King Von’s Murder.
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“How It Go”
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“Why He Told”
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“Crazy Story”
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Comments welcome.
Posted on November 9, 2020