Rapper shot dead near San Francisco train station, latest in wave of hip hop killings

by Anagha Srikanth | Dec. 2, 2020 | Dec. 02, 2020

Story at a glance

Alexander Mark Antonyyo, Jr., known by the stage name “Lil Yase,” was a rapper from the Sunnydale projects in San Francisco.
He was fatally shot in Dublin, Calif., this weekend.
The rapper is remembered for being “kindhearted” and his contributions to the music scene.

Bay Area rapper Lil Yase, whose birth name is Alexander Mark Antonyyo, Jr., was killed the night after Thanksgiving in Dublin, Calif.

Dublin police said in a release they are investigating the shooting after the rapper arrived at the Valley Care Medical Center in Pleasanton with multiple gunshot wounds at around 1 a.m. on Nov. 28. An ambulance took him to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley where he died.

READ MORE STORIES FROM CHANGING AMERICA

KEVIN VALDEZ OF APPLE TV+’S ‘LITTLE VOICE’ ON BEING AN ACTOR WITH AUTISM

THESE TWO CHANGEMAKERS HAVE CREATED AN INCLUSIVE SPACE FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR

NYC LAWYER-TURNED-PHOTOGRAPHER SHEDS LIGHT ON THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT

TRAVEL JOURNALIST ILLUMINATES CONTROVERSIAL SIDES OF ALL DESTINATIONS

The rapper’s record label, 420 Highway Productions, posted on Instagram on Sunday after he was identified.

“Initial information led officers to believe the shooting may have occurred near the East Dublin Bart Station,” said Dublin police in the release. Officers reportedly searched the surrounding areas and found “a crime scene” on the 5100 block of Iron Horse Parkway, but found no suspects.

“Why he was here in our city of Dublin is really the big questions we’re trying to answer,” Dublin police Capt. Nate Schmidt told local news station KTVU. He added, “I don’t believe that this is just a random act, an act that we have somebody out there that the public needs to worry about.”

Justin Miranda, Yase’s business partner at 420 Highway Productions, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Yase had no known adversaries or connections in Dublin.

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

“We don’t have any idea why he was out there,” Miranda told the Chronicle. “It was not an area that he frequented or where he knew anybody. He didn’t have enemies or rap beefs. He wasn’t in a gang. He transcended all of that.”

This is the second murder in Dublin, KTVU reported, with the first murder in the suburban city occurring in 2009. But about a 30 minute drive away, in Lil Yase’s hometown of San Francisco, gun violence has been on the rise, the Guardian reported, after the pandemic disrupted violence prevention efforts that had put deadly shootings in decline. Still, friends and community members told the Chronicle that they knew Lil Yase, or Mark Alexander as they called him, to be conflict averse.

“He was a real nice kid, a kindhearted guy who looked out for his friends,” Miranda said. “His lyrics were not indicative of who he was as a person. A lot of it was about things he saw in the neighborhood he came out of. A lot of it was fiction.”

Known for putting a San Francisco spin on “mumble rap,” Lil Yase had put out a tribute of his own to the late Kobe Bryant just this summer. In a year of loss for the genre, he joins the late New York rapper Pop Smoke, the Chicago up-and-comer King Von, and another Bay Area rapper, Tay Way, as victims of gun violence whose musical talent was taken from the world too soon.