They Wanna Kill Me: 9 Other Rappers Who've Survived Shootouts
The world lost one of the best rappers of all-time when 'Pac died in September 1996 after getting shot on the Las Vegas Strip by a still-unknown gunman. But it's important to remember that we could have lost him much earlier. The Cali representative survived a shootout at Quad Studios in New York City in November 1994. He later accused Diddy, Notorious B.I.G. and Bad Boy affiliates of carrying out the hit on his life, but they maintained their innocence in the matter and the shooter was never identified.
Before he played the role of Biggie in his biopic, Notorious, Jamal Woolard was Gravy, a Brooklyn MC looking for some notoriety of his own. He got it in 2006 when he showed up for an interview with Funkmaster Flex at Hot 97 in New York City—with a bullet lodged in his backside. Details about how and why it happened are few and far between, but Gravy finished the interview. His reward? A ban from play at the station, thanks to a policy that prevented DJs from playing "music by any artist who is involved in an altercation at the station." Oops!
After leaving a nightclub in October 2005 in a 2006 Lamborghini, Killa Cam ran into some trouble when unknown assailants approached his ride and tried to carjack him. When he resisted, they fired several bullets into the car and struck Cam in the arm. "A few they clapped," he rapped on the song "Get 'Em Daddy" shortly after the incident. "But I ate those, them shits is Scooby Snacks!" Killa!
Cam'Ron isn't the only Diplomat to survive a near-fatal shooting. His cousin Freaky Zeeky also managed to escape the Reaper in 2003 after a trio of armed men attacked him and outside a nightclub in NYC. Following a minor car accident involving both parties, one of the men got out of the car and tried taking Zeeky's chain. When he refused, the men opened fire and Zeeky caught a bullet in his torso. Unfortunately, his bodyguard was also hit and fatally wounded.
Detroit is tough. Need proof? Obie got shot twice on New Year's Eve 2005—when he was driving on the Lodge Expressway in Motown! One of the bullets actually landed in Obie's head, but he was able to get his car off the expressway and flag down a police officer to take him to the hospital. Due to complications, the bullet remains lodged in his head as a reminder of what he managed to avoid.
In October 2006, F-A-B-O was standing in a parking garage with several associates near Justin's restaurant in New York City when a group of men approached him and starting firing. He was struck in the leg and rushed to the hospital for treatment. Coincidentally, though, it was Fab who ended up getting arrested after police pulled over his car during the drive to the hospital and found two unlicensed, loaded guns. Talk about having a situation backfire on you.
Game was ducking shots long before he joined 50 Cent's G-Unit clique and became one of hip-hop's favorite villains. Back in 2001, he got shot five times during a botched drug deal in his hometown of Los Angeles and slipped into a coma for several days as a result. He made it through, though, and eventually parlayed his street tales into a successful rap career.
Despite establishing himself as a successful solo artist in the early to mid-2000s, Sigel couldn't leave the streets alone when he made it big. In May 2006, Sigel was shot twice in the right arm when a gunman tried robbing him of a watch in Philadelphia. He was hospitalized shortly but recovered from the wound.
Sorry, but you can't make a list about rappers surviving shootouts without 50 Cent. Fif invented the "using a shooting as a publicity stunt" shtick back in the early 2000s when he used his April 2000 shooting (where he got shot nine times! Can you believe it?!) to propel his career forward. He took six months to recover, built up his physique by working out regularly and started building up a war chest of freestyles and songs. And the rest is history!
