In another episode of the ongoing violence in an ungovernable Chicago, the cousin of local rap musician Chief Keef was killed in the near south side neighborhood of Englewood.
Mario Hess, 33, was shot and killed on the evening of April 9. Hess–who originally went by the name “Blood Money” and then “Big Glo” after getting a recording contract–was a member of Chief Keef’s Glory Boyz Entertainment crew and was Keef’s second cousin.
Chicago Police released no motive in the shooting but reported that more than a dozen rounds were fired at Hess and another man who were walking down Elizabeth Avenue just before 10 p.m. The rapper was hit up to 10 times and was pronounced dead at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital. The second man survived.
Along with his music, Hess has been immersed in a world of gangs, drugs, crime and violence for his entire life.
“It’s a lot of crime and violence in Chicago, these rap guys are being targeted, so you know, just trying to get him outside the neighborhood. He’s from the streets,” the rapper’s manager, Renaldo Reuben Hess, told the media.
“He had been cleaning his life up because he was trying to take his career to another level,” the manager told Chicago’s ABC 7 News.
Hess recorded some 27 songs in Los Angeles last month. The rapper only recently got his own recording contract signing with Interscope Records and earning a $50,000 signing bonus but didn’t live long enough to see his new music come to market.
He had a long court record, appearing in some 36 cases according to court records uncovered by the Chicago Tribune.
The rapper had been arrested on several gun charges, had drug arrests, cases of violence, and was convicted of violating parole. In 2002 he received a sentence of one-year in jail for a cocaine charge and in 2007 was given two years for a weapons charge.
This isn’t the first time gunfire has erupted with people connected to rapper Chief Keef.
On March 26 gunfire was reported at a Northfield home rented by Keef’s manager.
Northfield police reported then that one man was shot and was transported to a local hospital were he was listed as in good condition.
Keef, whose real name is Keith Cozart, has also had trouble with the law having recently been arrested for drunk driving and had only just come off supervision for past drug offenses.
Violence like this is nothing new to Keef and his Chicago rapper crew. The violence was detailed starkly in an extensive interview with Keef and his cohorts published by Playboy in March.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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