The local rap community is reeling from last night’s fatal shooting of Pittsburg, CA rapper The Jacka, who was shot in the head and killed at 94th Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland. He was 37-years-old.
Born Dominic Newton, he changed his name to Shaheed Akbar when he became a Muslim. He didn’t have a reputation for trouble — he had a rep for being solid, humble, relatable, and hard working, all of which makes his sudden loss incredibly hard to process for those who knew him best.
Witnesses on the scene say he was rapping and hanging out with friends at the time of the shooting. “He was just making music,” self-described “godbrother” Reggie Grant told NBC Bay Area , saying that he didn’t think The Jacka could have been targeted.
“He had problems with nobody,” he added. “He’d give you the shoes off his feet. He gave jobs to lots of people.”
Mercury Newsreports that OPD (510-238-3821) and Crime Stoppers (510-777-8572) are offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of his killer.
The Jacka embodied the Bay Area independent rap hustle. He was a self-starting entrepreneur with intelligence and charisma who never strayed in his loyalty to the region that made him into an artist. He recorded and released more than a dozen solo albums since 2001, released at least four as part of the group Mob Figaz and put out several mixtapes each year — including eight in 2013 alone.
I never got a chance to meet the Jacka in person, but we did have a great interview together for SF Weekly in 2010. Even then, he was well aware that he was building an important and lasting legacy.
"There's always a message," he said at the time. "We're not rapping just to shoot the breeze, because when we're gone, we realize our music is still gonna be here. We've got a tongue, and we're blessed with speech. Some people can't even talk, so we've gotta use it for the right things. We don't want to lead people astray after we're gone, because all that is coming back on our soul."
[h/t NBC Bay Area]
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