In the early hours of Tuesday morning, hip-hop fans woke up to devastating news that rapper Kirshnik Khari Ball, best known as Takeoff and for his work with Migos, had been fatally shot after an altercation at a Houston bowling alley.
On this edition of “Closer Look,” Jocelyn Wilson, an assistant professor of hip-hop studies and digital humanities in the Black Media Studies cohort at Georgia Tech, discussed the legacy that the beloved artist left behind.
“Takeoff had some of the greatest ab-libs … (Migos) call and response sequences, I believe, just kind of elevated that type of component of Black music, particularly rap music”, said Wilson. “We didn’t hear a whole lot about his personal life. When he did talk, he seemed to have a sense of humor, a sense of wit that I found to be quite humorous.”
Wilson also touched on the alarming rate of deaths among rappers within the hip-hop community due to gun violence, particularly male rappers of color.
“There are conversations that need to be had that I believe aren’t happening,” said Wilson. “There has to be an internal conversation within hip hop to deal with why Black men predominantly continue to kill one another and kill rappers … there’s something going on, and it always seems to lead back to the use of guns. We have to talk about the ways in which it is impacting the community that it comes from.”
