San Francisco rapper, Lil Yase (Alexander Antonnyo Jr.) was shot and killed over the weekend.
What We Know:
- Early Saturday morning officers received reports of a male at ValleyCare Medical Center in Pleasanton suffering from several gunshot wounds. They later identified the man as Bay Area artist Lil Yase. An ambulance transferred him to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley where he sadly passed away. Police believe the shooting took place about a block away from the East Dublin BART station.
- While there are currently no suspects in custody, an investigation into Lil Yase’s murder continues. Dublin Police Captain Nate Schmidt says investigators “do have some leads” seeing as he was able to give Pleasonton police a bit of information before he died.
- Justin Miranda was the business partner of Lil Yase at their independent record label 420 Highway Productions. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Miranda, along with many others, is stunned by his death. He said, “We don’t have any idea why he was out there. It was not an area…where he knew anybody. He didn’t have enemies or rap beefs. He wasn’t in a gang. He transcended all of that.” Miranda shared that a lot of the rapper’s lyrics were fiction. The violence he rapped about was mainly from what he saw growing up, and not who he truly was.
- Lil Yase grew up in the Sunnydale housing projects. Larry Jones has been a youth counselor and staple in the community for a long time. He says he always knew when something violent in the neighborhood was about to happen because Lil Yase would find safety in the community center. “He would go hang out in the computer lab by himself. That is when we knew something was brewing,” Jones said.
- Back in September of this year, Lil Yase released an EP with another Bay Area rapper named Nemz. He grew a following back in 2015 from his hit song “Get In” and has since received hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube for other tracks like “No Diss”, “Demon”, and “Streets’ Freestyle”. Lil Yase has also collaborated with a number of other popular rappers (and rap groups) such as Shoreline Mafia, IamSu!, G-Val, Yatta, and Cash Kidd. Jones suspects his association with other rappers may have possibly landed a target on his back.
Miranda said Lil Yase only desired to focus on his music and the label. He constantly uplifted other rappers and spent most of his days in the studio. Along with the many other artists taken from us too soon this year, he will be missed.
