Sylvie Claire / May 5, 2022
Rapper The Kidd Creole, one of the founding members of the famed rap group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison for the 2017 stabbing death of a homeless man in New York City.
The Kidd Creole, 62, whose real name is Nathaniel Glover, was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter on April 6 in a New York state court, without intent to kill. He was accused of stabbing the victim, John Jolly, a 55-year-old homeless man, twice with a knife in the middle of the street in Midtown, Manhattan, after a verbal exchange. The Kidd Creole - not to be confused with Kid Creole, founder of Kid Creole and the coconuts - was one of five rappers who accompanied DJ Grandmaster Flash in the group considered a rap pioneer. The group was formed in the Bronx neighborhood in the 1970s, when hip-hop was still in its infancy.
Cult song, The Message, released in 1982, was ranked 59th by Rolling Stone magazine in its latest ranking of the 500 best songs in history in September 2021.
The song was the first hit in rap history to depict the harsh conditions of life in the New York ghettos of the early 1980s, when hip-hop was simply party music. For their contribution to music history, the members of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were inducted into the prestigious Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. They were the first rap group to be so honored.