One can only imagine what kind of artist La Capone would have been if he had lived long enough to live out his talent. The young rapper from Chicago was a budding musician and had already built up a considerable social media fan community before his death.
Capone is known for the few singles he released online, although he never got around to making a full EP. He was usually seen in the company of his close friend and co-rapper Lil Durk. The two were inseparable and even worked together on some songs.
La Capone Biography
The rapper was born on September 18, 1996, as Leonard Anderson in Chicago, Illinois. He was still a child when his parents separated. As a result of the divorce, his mother, Dedra Morris, got custody of little Leonard, and he spent the first years of his life with her.
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Since he grew up on the streets of Chicago, La Capone’s influences in life and music were not surprising, even predictable. He was a student of the Chicago-based rap sub-genre “Drill Music”, which has been known as rap music since his early days. It wasn’t long before La Capone immersed himself in almost everything that “drill music” produced – especially violence, drugs, and gang life.
He was just 11 years old when he joined the rap collective known as “Only the Family. It was a group founded by his friend Lil Durk and other rappers were also part of it. He soon gained fame and recognition when he performed on songs by Lil Durk and songs like RondoNumbaNine. As his videos with Lil Durk and other presenters made the rounds online, his name also grew and his fan base grew and in a short time exceeded 100,000 followers.
Over the course of his life, he released several singles of his own, which he posted to his personal social media accounts. Titles like “The Gat”, “Round Here” and “So loud” were among his most popular titles.
Life and Death of the American Rapper
The rapper grew up in a culture of drugs and gangs, and he had no intention of hiding this. In fact, it became a part of his personality. In his videos, he often showed himself smoking marijuana and reviving gang life. Speaking of gangs: La Capone was a member of the “Black Disciples”, a well-known gang in the Chicago area, which was active in Chicago together with his friend Lil Durk and the prominent rapper Chief Keef. Shortly after joining the gang, he took the stage name La Capone and started making music.
Leonard was on the rise in the music world when his life was tragically shortened in 2013. On September 26, 2013, the rapper was on Stony Island Avenue in Chicago. He had just been in a studio session where he had just recorded a song. Around 6:25 pm he was on his way back with a friend and he had to walk down an alley to get to his car.
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They were approached by an armed man as soon as La Capone reached his car. One of the shots hit his thigh, and another bullet penetrated his lower back, causing severe bleeding. He was taken to the nearby Northwestern Memorial Hospital. On two occasions the doctors had stopped the bleeding, but on the third they were unsuccessful. Around 8:30 p.m. he was pronounced dead due to severe blood loss.
The rapper had just turned 17 the week before his death. His mother Dedra revealed that the chocolate cake she had baked for him was still waiting for him at home. She also revealed that his quick death was shocking because he had survived a gunfight around the same time in 2012.
It was believed that La Capone’s death was related to a gang. At the time of his death, he was a member of a gang known as “600”, a rival gang to the “Black Disciples” and “051 Young Money”. In August of the following year, three men, Sakhee Hardy-Johnson, Michael Mays, and Meiko Buchanan, were arrested in connection with his death. Both Mays and Johnson were members of “051 Young Money”, while the third person, Meiko, was presumably a driver.
A mixtape was posthumously released in his name by a group of his Emcee friends. The collection was entitled King LA and included some of the late rapper’s most successful singles.