![]() Police soon identified Stress as Craig Robert Mounger, a 23-year-old school dropout, landscaper and aspiring rapper, according to court records. His first thought, he said, was "this is the dumbest thing I've heard in my life."Ĭrandle wishes someone had stepped between the men and cooled the exchange. A week before the show, Crandle got the call telling him his cousin was dead. Bonney could rap about the streets, women and fatherhood to any beat, he said.Ĭrandle had scheduled Bonney to perform at a Pittsburgh talent show. On Bonney's birthday, his cousin had him freestyle over a cellphone with producers. "Get into every rap battle you can," Crandle said. Crandle, a music promoter in Pittsburgh, encouraged him. He picked up odd jobs along the way, always hustling for extra money. He returned to Norfolk, got a job with the city and also worked at his mother's child-care center. He did not want to redeploy and left the Army as a specialist. ![]() His Army friends told her he often loosened up the guys with his words and rhymes. He served in a logistics unit based in Baghdad, his mother said. Washington, Bonney left for Army basic training. Within a week of graduation from Booker T. When Bonney was a teen, he saw a friend get shot at a club, Crandle said. "Boy could hit," said his cousin and close friend, Michael Crandle.Ĭrandle said Bonney wanted to get away from the streets. ![]() He stood just shy of 6 feet, but was tough enough to play middle linebacker in high school. But he matured and joined the Junior ROTC program, his mother said. He could be aggressive and stubborn, his family said. "Every single day I got a hug and a kiss," she said during a recent interview at her Park Place home.ĭaquan Hill got in trouble in school and ended up at Hanover Juvenile Correctional Facility outside Richmond. Patricia Hill said Fufu, as her son was called, was the youngest of three children. Michelle King, his girlfriend, told him to quiet down. One morning, he rapped in the shower, pounding out beats on the wet tiles, syncopated with the falling water. Rapped to his friends, mother, anyone who would listen on the street. "Controversy is good in Hollywood," he said, "but not in Virginia."ĭaquan Hill rapped his girlfriend to sleep. Hill said it takes maturity to shrug off the insults. "These kids today are fearless," he said. However, Hernandez backs away from battle raps because they can spin out of control. "There's something really true about it." Pharaoh.Īlmost every time he goes to a house party, Hernandez said, he ends up in the backyard with friends, a boombox and a freestyle stream of lyrics. It's less about competition than collaboration, said Justin Hernandez, a Virginia Beach emcee known as J. More often, rappers form a circle, known as a cipher, and share lyrics to a beat. "I'm going to talk about all your insecurities and put them on Front Street," Hill said. Most do it because they love music, poetry and the face-to-face challenge, he said. Hill, 27, won an emcee and battle rap competition last year at NSU. "It's a chance to be a star, to emulate what you see on TV," said Russell Hill, a radio host at Norfolk State University who goes by DJ Illmatic Beats. The lyrical duels have been around as long as hip-hop, and figure prominently in such movies as rapper Eminem's "8 Mile." The popular video music show "106 & Park" on BET features Freestyle Friday, with rappers dueling on a stage decorated as a boxing ring. Police and prosecutors in other Hampton Roads cities reported no other serious incidents involving rap battles. Seldom, however, do the raps turn violent.
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