Too often there is a forgotten man in a threesome. Whether it’s because of stronger personalities or cheeky styles, or because listeners can’t mistakenly see that the whole is greater than the parts, there always seems to be a third man or woman. Such was the case six years ago with Takeoff, one-third of the critically acclaimed Atlanta rap trio Migos, when he sat out the band’s 2016 crossover, “Bad and Boujee.” His absence has become an internet meme, but he pulls off those pranks with an inimitable rapping style and an introspective aura in a band known for its commercial precision. It was in many ways a classic expression of Takeoff’s style, who was killed around 2:40 a.m. Tuesday in Houston by an as yet unknown assailant. He was only 28 years old.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a band over the past decade that has brought a regional style – North Atlanta in this case – to the mainstream like Migos did. (You’d be harder to find one in popular music history who did it so quickly.) From the start, with their breakthrough single, “Versace,” this style had always been deceptively simple. . Ever since the band signed with Quality Control in 2013, their existence has sometimes been reduced to innocuous but dodgy memes like “the Migos are better than the Beatles.”
But the Migos were, and are, a rich combination of pop sensibilities and historic street tunes. Whether Quavo was the member with the most common sensitivities and Gap was known for his charisma and controversy, then Takeoff was quietly the most compelling member of the trio. Beneath the surface of their three-stroke flexes, Takeoff was an incredibly heavy man. There was the song “I Remember”, on the excellent and unreleased from 2018 The last rocket, in which he tells of selling drugs in his mother’s basement. Or closer Rocket, “Bruce Wayne,” in which Takeoff admitted his anxiety about being in the spotlight. Every trio needs an intuitive, sharp-edged member, and Takeoff was that despite the opulence the band wrapped themselves in.
On Tuesday, while specifically mourning the loss of Takeoff, it was also impossible not to situate his murder as another point in a long line of confusing and demoralizing murders in hip-hop. There was embattled South Florida phenom XXXTentacion in 2018. Then Los Angeles royal rapper Nipsey Hussle in 2019. In 2020, rising Brooklyn star Pop Smoke. In September, it was the humble polymath from Philadelphia PnB Rock. The details in each case were as heartbreaking as they were mundane. XXXTentacion was gunned down at a motorcycle dealership. Hussle was shot while standing outside his Marathon clothing store. Pop Smoke was killed in a Hollywood Hills Airbnb he was renting. PnB Rock was at Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles with his girlfriend.
Takeoff, who was outside a bowling alley playing dice games with Quavo, his uncle, adds to this senseless cycle of depressing murders in what should be innocuous circumstances. No one should have to fear being killed by gun violence, especially not artists who are at a point in their life when they are no longer on the streets.
Bad faith actors, like the one who wrote this tweet heretook this opportunity to suggest that the problem is hip-hop itself, but that ignores so many of the forces at play in these deaths, especially the systemic inequalities that the last two pandemic years made so clear. In this hyperactive and unequal American moment, people have less patience and love for each other. When there are no resources and no hope, there is no empathy. This is partly the reason why a father and son could conspire together to rob and murder PnB Rock in a restaurant. It’s not because of the so-called inherent violence in hip-hop. Death in rap is death in black America.
When someone sees a rapper on social media — with chains he doesn’t have, the comforts he dreams of, and a wad of cash he needs to survive — those rappers flatten out and lose their humanity in the process. They are replacing the imbalances in American livelihoods right now. Death is desensitized to social media. Black men’s bodies are tweeted, liked and retweeted without thought or consequences. This video of Takeoff’s body after the shooting was visible on social media all day should shock no one.
I write this sad and brooding feeling. Not just because of the loss of Takeoff’s silent brilliance, and the path that Migos and Quality Control Group have paved for other great rappers like Little baby— but because I fear it will only continue. A man’s rage, faced with what he doesn’t have, becomes something transgressive and fatal. Takeoff’s lifeless body will be shared until the next rapper is killed. Until our inequalities are mitigated, it is better to be prepared for murders, tears and despair. During a recent interview on the hip-hop podcast Drinking Champions, Takeoff said that in light of the recent murders, he was watching his back. “You have to be careful with social media now.… It’s the people who follow you and watch you who [have] bad intentions and I don’t want the best for you.… That’s why I don’t even really post like this.
It’s a shame, brutal even, that Takeoff was killed despite his diligence in protecting himself.
Comments are closed.