True Anon Truth Feed - Episode 165: Who Killed Mac Dre?
Aired: 2021-06-28
Duration: 01:12:32


=== Liz And Ecstasy (03:21) ===

[00:00:00]  Liz, give me a this face.
[00:00:01]  Hit me with a this face.
[00:00:03]  Do it for me.
[00:00:04]  I'm so happy that we have an audio podcast.
[00:00:07]  Yeah.
[00:00:07]  Well, I don't care what I mean.
[00:00:09]  It's not my problem if they can't see you.
[00:00:11]  Give me one.
[00:00:12]  You're not doing it.
[00:00:13]  No, you do it.
[00:00:15]  That you got it.
[00:00:18]  Well, you got to wipe it down for it.
[00:00:20]  Yeah, it's not.
[00:00:22]  I mean, come on.
[00:00:22]  It's not, it's not like a model face or whatever.
[00:00:26]  It's the this.
[00:00:26]  No, I mean, it's literally the directions for it are: I know, you know, look on your face like this melts and piss.
[00:00:33]  Yes, she's doing it.
[00:00:35]  Yes.
[00:00:37]  That's the thing is a lot of people are like, what happened to this?
[00:00:41]  What happened to this?
[00:00:42]  It actually, Liz really, her sort of emergence on the Bay Area rap scene really took that over because it all became the Liz face, the Lizzle dance.
[00:00:51]  Dude, I said explicitly in the notes for our show, I said absolutely no jokes about Liz, This, this Franzak.
[00:01:01]  No Lizzle.
[00:01:02]  There's no Lizzle.
[00:01:04]  Do I feel, in my calcium-deficient bones, shaky as they are, a nickname that is ransacked?
[00:01:35]  It's okay, because I don't have a Wikipedia page.
[00:01:37]  Wiggle.
[00:01:38]  Wikipedia?
[00:01:40]  Did I just say Wikipedia?
[00:01:42]  Wigglepedia.
[00:01:44]  You don't have a Wigglepedia page, Liz.
[00:01:46]  Oh, my God.
[00:01:46]  This all, Wigglepedia.
[00:01:49]  Uh-huh.
[00:01:49]  Goes together.
[00:01:51]  Lizzle.
[00:01:52]  Wait, no, we're not using any of this.
[00:01:54]  We're using all this.
[00:01:54]  Here's the thing: Liz and I, unbeknownst to Young Chomsky, took a little bit of ecstasy before we started recording.
[00:02:04]  No, we didn't.
[00:02:05]  I feel so fucking good right now.
[00:02:08]  Very good.
[00:02:10]  It's crazy.
[00:02:11]  It's like, you ever like, damn, I should record a podcast?
[00:02:13]  Be like, maybe I should like take a, like, just like get in the tub and just start putting fucking body, body lotion all over myself.
[00:02:22]  You ever do that?
[00:02:24]  Hello, everyone.
[00:02:24]  I'm Liz.
[00:02:25]  Hey, what's up?
[00:02:26]  I'm Bryce.
[00:02:27]  If it sounds echoing here, it's because I'm in the bathroom.
[00:02:31]  We are joined by producer Young Chomsky, who is actually honestly stepping up today and doing most of my rub down for me because my arms are sort of constrained by the very narrow tub.
[00:02:44]  And the podcast is called Thizanon.
[00:02:47]  I was wondering which way you were going to go with that one.
[00:02:51]  We are talking hyphae today.
[00:02:54]  We're getting hyphae.
[00:02:55]  Yeah, we were talking.
[00:02:57]  I mean, this is Liz and I have been have been on the hyphi phone all day today with each other.
[00:03:04]  But we were talking about how it's crazy, like the Bay has produced so many of these different sort of sounds and all of it kind of just like fails right before it launches.
[00:03:16]  Yeah.
[00:03:17]  Yeah.
[00:03:17]  The Bay Area is like very unique in that way.
[00:03:19]  I think.
[00:03:19]  I don't know.

=== Bay Area Musical Pivots (12:36) ===

[00:03:21]  It's like across genres and decades, it seems like there's been multiple times where like you'll feel and hear the Bay Area influence in like a whole wide array of different in different places, whether it's like an art or music, but particularly music I'm thinking of.
[00:03:38]  Yeah.
[00:03:38]  But like almost everyone fails to break out and become famous.
[00:03:43]  Yeah.
[00:03:44]  You know what I mean?
[00:03:44]  Well, especially like, especially fail.
[00:03:47]  I mean, they might break out and they might become famous, but they don't do it attached to the part of like the, of the wave of music that they're a part of.
[00:03:54]  You know what I mean?
[00:03:55]  Like, you know, like E40 is like famous now, but he's like, it's not like he's the hyphi movement kind of didn't come with him.
[00:04:02]  And like all those sort of like, you know, garage and indie rock punk bands or whatever from like 2009, like all those, like, they all had to move away or like leave the Bay Area.
[00:04:13]  And like that sort of movement, all that, it all failed.
[00:04:16]  Yeah.
[00:04:18]  Yeah.
[00:04:18]  And then like every once in a while, like somebody comes along who really like embodies or is able to kind of embody that region or a specific region and a style like, and this like moment in time so perfectly.
[00:04:32]  And I really do think, I mean, Mac Dre like really is that for the Bay Area in the kind of the kind of like, you know, late 90s through mid-2000s or mid-early 2000s, really, you know, up until his death.
[00:04:45]  But that like really precise moment of like kind of in between post post-gangster rap right up into hyphi.
[00:04:54]  I mean, Mac Dre like is that.
[00:04:56]  He is Vallejo.
[00:04:57]  He is, you know, East Bay rap.
[00:05:01]  And the kind of mystery and tragedy of his death, like, I don't know, it's, it's so horrible because of those things.
[00:05:09]  Like because this, it's almost like all this stuff got famous like because he died, which makes it even like sadder, you know?
[00:05:18]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:19]  I mean, he's like the hyphi martyr.
[00:05:21]  I mean, it's, it's, it's wild because a lot of that really took off.
[00:05:24]  I mean, we talked about in the episode, but like, uh, you know, like tell me when to go, you know, stun of shade, all that stuff like was like really just hit the, hit the mainstream after, after Mac Dre died.
[00:05:37]  And Mac Dre's death was, you know, a huge deal.
[00:05:41]  Yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy because like even, you know, like basically everybody I know still in the bay is like, I mean, he, the Mac Dre never went away for a lot of people.
[00:05:50]  Yeah.
[00:05:51]  People still listen to him all the time.
[00:05:52]  Like, it's still like a household name.
[00:05:54]  I mean, it's really wild just how long, especially considering how many years it's been now since 2004, just the staying power and the cultural power of Mac Dre.
[00:06:05]  And, you know, Donald mentioned it sort of after we stopped recording, but yeah, July 5th, Mac Dre Day.
[00:06:10]  Oh, yeah, coming up.
[00:06:12]  In the Bay.
[00:06:13]  So make sure to put those whistles on the back of your car and then start your car.
[00:06:20]  Put it, I think, in neutral.
[00:06:22]  Not really sure what's going on with cars.
[00:06:24]  Start your quick to get out of the car.
[00:06:25]  Yeah.
[00:06:26]  Actually, you know what?
[00:06:27]  Here's the thing.
[00:06:28]  If you're a hater, you don't actually have to leave your garage.
[00:06:31]  You can start your car in the garage and just wait around in there.
[00:06:35]  And things will get really hyphy, really.
[00:06:37]  Okay.
[00:06:38]  But if you're not a hater, you can you can go ghost ride the whip on July 5th.
[00:06:42]  Well, like you said, we got Donald here.
[00:06:44]  Let's let's get into his piece on Mac Dre, the murder of Mac Dre, the mystery around the murder of Mac Dre and how he smoked it.
[00:06:54]  Hello, everybody.
[00:06:55]  Hi.
[00:06:56]  I'd like to introduce you to the Fizzle Dance.
[00:06:59]  Fizzle Dance?
[00:07:00]  Fizzle Dance, I said.
[00:07:10]  Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
[00:07:12]  We are going stupid, doo-doo-dumb today here on Truanon.
[00:07:16]  We are riding the yellow short bus.
[00:07:19]  We are morons.
[00:07:21]  We are stupid.
[00:07:23]  And we are getting to the bottom of one of the biggest murder cases to hit Bay Area music, I think, in decades, the murder of Mac Dre.
[00:07:34]  And we have with us here investigative journalist Donald Morrison from Law360 to really talk us through kind of an astounding, astounding case.
[00:07:45]  Donald, welcome to Truanon.
[00:07:46]  How you doing?
[00:07:47]  Thank you for having me.
[00:07:48]  It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:07:49]  I'm a huge fan.
[00:07:52]  We got to start.
[00:07:53]  Mac Dre, the Haifi movement.
[00:07:56]  Fizz.
[00:07:57]  Ghost Riding the Whip.
[00:07:59]  Going stupid, doo-doo-dumb.
[00:08:02]  For those of you who don't know, Mac Dre was, when I was growing up, the biggest hands-down rapper in the Bay Area and the most influential musician of any kind, I think, in my young life.
[00:08:18]  Even if you chose not to listen to Mac Dre or whatever, or were actively tried to get away from the Haifi movement during the early 2000s, you would be unable.
[00:08:31]  And so, Donald, talk to us a little about who is Mac Dre?
[00:08:36]  Yeah, Mac Dre, like you said, he's an absolute rock star from the Bay Area, one of the architects of the Haifi movement.
[00:08:45]  And I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and it was very inescapable there, too.
[00:08:50]  My first show, my first concert was Andre Nicotina and the mob figures.
[00:08:56]  Oh, yeah.
[00:08:56]  Sick.
[00:08:57]  I was already, I think that probably was in 2006.
[00:09:00]  So Mac Dre had already been dead for two years by the time I was old enough to know what's what.
[00:09:08]  But yeah, he was hugely influential for me growing up as well.
[00:09:12]  He was arguably like the biggest musical artist to me and my friend group.
[00:09:17]  The thing is with Mac Dre, too, is that he not only was part of the La Hyphi movement, he was basically the leader of it.
[00:09:24]  Like even all the stuff that he didn't come up with, I mean, he didn't come up with the term hyphi.
[00:09:28]  He didn't come up with a lot of this stuff, you know, he didn't come up with Goes Riding the Whip, but all of that is super associated with him.
[00:09:35]  And, you know, a little bit of background on Mac Dre.
[00:09:37]  His real name is Andre Hicks.
[00:09:40]  I think he's, he's from Vallejo, later moved to Sacramento.
[00:09:44]  He, yeah, it's funny.
[00:09:47]  We were just talking before we started recording.
[00:09:48]  There's like a very big like departure point for Mac Dre musically, at least.
[00:09:55]  And I think that really coincides with when he went to prison.
[00:09:58]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:59]  He was like basically kind of all wrapped up in this crew through, was it like the kind of early to mid 80s up through the early 90s?
[00:10:09]  There was like a rash.
[00:10:12]  I don't want to, I don't know why I just went with that word, but there was a rash of robberies like throughout California, but I mean, specifically in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
[00:10:22]  And one of the, there was like different crews that were kind of getting these robberies pinned on them.
[00:10:28]  One of them was this, this crew called the Romper Room crew.
[00:10:32]  Is that what they call themselves?
[00:10:33]  The Romper Room?
[00:10:33]  Yeah, I think Romper Room Gang, right?
[00:10:35]  Rompero.
[00:10:36]  The Romper Room Gang off of, it was based off of like a kid's television show.
[00:10:40]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:10:41]  I watched that show when I was a kid.
[00:10:43]  I like had a flashback to it when I was like listening to some of this stuff earlier.
[00:10:47]  I was like, whoa.
[00:10:50]  But Mac Dre basically got, I mean, he got pinned for a bunch of these or like one of these robberies or conspiracy to commit a robbery and put away for like five years.
[00:11:01]  It's a crazy story, too, because he, you know, the Romper Room gang, they were known for like robbing pizza stores specifically and for banks.
[00:11:11]  And one of the, another Bay Area rapper, Jay Diggs, he still gives like interviews.
[00:11:14]  He was one of the ones arrested for that conspiracy to commit bank robbery back in 1993.
[00:11:21]  And Mac Dre, they had like gone down there.
[00:11:24]  And while Mac Dre was hooking up with some girl, his friends were casing this bank.
[00:11:30]  And the cops had been working on this for like years trying to get these guys.
[00:11:35]  And they show up to the bank to rob it.
[00:11:38]  And the local news crew picks up on the radio that this big thing is going to happen and blows like this years long operation by the police.
[00:11:48]  So that clearly weren't very smart in planning that one.
[00:11:52]  But they still had enough to like, I think they found burglary tools, maybe some masks inside the car.
[00:12:00]  And because Mac Dre wouldn't tell on his friends is the legend, he did five years.
[00:12:06]  And, you know, that's a hard time for not robbing a bank.
[00:12:12]  Yeah.
[00:12:13]  Yeah.
[00:12:13]  And I mean, he was like coming up before this.
[00:12:16]  I mean, he already had like, I think he had what, like at least a couple mixtapes out.
[00:12:22]  Like people knew who he was.
[00:12:24]  You know, there was like the Bay Area had a kind of, I mean, it was, it wasn't yet anything close to what hyphi, like even in sound, it wasn't even close to that.
[00:12:34]  It was much more like gangster rap kind of style, I guess you could say.
[00:12:38]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:12:39]  But he like, but I mean, he was like, people knew who he was.
[00:12:42]  You know what I mean?
[00:12:44]  And he like, I mean, the crazy thing was he started like putting, recording raps like from prison, which is cool.
[00:12:52]  Like through the, through the phone at jail, which only like kind of like added to his legend while he was in jail.
[00:13:00]  Absolutely.
[00:13:00]  He was like one of the first rappers to do that.
[00:13:03]  And he wrote, he wrote Too Hard for the fucking radio, which is his big, his like big first single.
[00:13:09]  That was, he wrote that while in high school.
[00:13:12]  And then it was on the young Black Brother album that he released while he was in prison.
[00:13:16]  So like he had a couple mixtapes, but that prison stint, I mean, it came before his like major debut.
[00:13:23]  Like it really stifled his plans of becoming an artist.
[00:13:27]  It was like a very tragic time to have that happen.
[00:13:30]  Yeah, it's crazy because I sorry, Bryce and I were just like talking about this and I was saying like, it's so fucked up to like imagine being in jail and then like watching a bunch of your boys and kind of the Bay Area like get famous and rap like really take off.
[00:13:45]  Cause this is like, I mean, that was like what, like 92, 93?
[00:13:49]  Yeah.
[00:13:50]  I mean, this is like, you know, right when everything is starting to kind of explode and he's, you know, basically sequestered away from all of it.
[00:14:00]  Exactly.
[00:14:00]  And he's one of the, he, I think he is the first rapper to have his, his lyrics and his art used against him in the case.
[00:14:09]  Like, I think it predates Tupac's 1994 thing.
[00:14:14]  And so that's something that, you know, we see a lot of these days.
[00:14:19]  So yeah, it's crazy.
[00:14:23]  Yeah.
[00:14:23]  Yeah.
[00:14:23]  The whole thing is he, he, his, I think it was like Romp Room Records was his like, you know, little record label.
[00:14:29]  He talked about, you know, the romper room, mentioned it in a bunch of different songs.
[00:14:33]  And they, yeah, they like use that to prove that he was in the gang, which is, which is pretty wild.
[00:14:38]  And he gets out, I think, around 96, right?
[00:14:41]  Yeah.
[00:14:41]  And from what I understand, I, you know, I'm no hyphi historian.
[00:14:47]  And that's the thing.
[00:14:47]  Like, you know, I'm not an expert on any of this stuff.
[00:14:51]  This is basically just like me remembering kind of like how this stuff went down.
[00:14:56]  When he gets out, though, like, it seems like from what I get, from like what his mom says and kind of what his friend says, he was like, he wanted to like kind of leave like the gangster, at least sound behind and basically become like fun, I guess you could say.
[00:15:13]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:13]  And his mom has all these letters that he wrote her when he was in prison talking about how he wanted to like start a business.
[00:15:21]  It was his plans to start Fizz Entertainment and his plan to pivot towards party music and towards, you know, I mean, but it wasn't a full pivot towards party music.
[00:15:33]  He still made like the real shit where he's talking about like real life stuff and, you know, serving time and being black in America.
[00:15:42]  And so, so yeah, but that pivot was very noted.
[00:15:46]  And that's when he, that's like, that's when he really started blowing up, I think, beyond the Bay Area.
[00:15:53]  But it's hard for me to say because I don't remember.

=== Vastly Different Hyphy (05:21) ===

[00:15:57]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:58]  Well, the thing is, like, I mean, well, a little after he gets out and sort of coinciding with this, there is what becomes the hyphi movement in the Bay Area, right?
[00:16:08]  I think hyphi was first originally coined by Keek Desneak, and which I read in an interview, he says was because when he was little, he ate too much candy and would like go crazy from eating too much candy, which I get.
[00:16:23]  Same thing with me.
[00:16:25]  And he'd be acting hyphy.
[00:16:27]  And like, so when I was like, that's sort of like the way hyphi has kind of always been colloquially used in the bay.
[00:16:33]  It's like, you know, there's hyphy movement, hyphy music, but then like if somebody's getting too like out of hand at a party or your friends acting, I think it's basic, you know, it's like the same way that people say, like, use ratchet, essentially.
[00:16:46]  It's like it very energetically annoying and destructive.
[00:16:52]  And, but, but it's funny because actually like the hyphi movement was like a lot more positive than you would describe.
[00:16:59]  Like you wouldn't necessarily associate with the way that someone, if someone's acting hyphy, that's not like what you really think of when you think of the hyphi movement.
[00:17:07]  And so around this same time, like all these different rappers really kind of embrace this sound.
[00:17:13]  And it's like a very bouncy kind of like, I don't know what, I don't know, really, I mean, I'm no, you know, I'm retired for the music reviewing game, but it's, it's, it's fun, you know, like it's a very like joyous kind of music.
[00:17:26]  No, yeah, it's, it's very, very celebratory.
[00:17:29]  And you're right.
[00:17:31]  The, the word hyphy kind of has morphed into like a catch-all term for any kind of like destruction or party foul.
[00:17:38]  But I think it's like its roots are a lot more positive than the connotations that are attached to it these days.
[00:17:47]  Because it really was just about Mac Dre and his crew having fun.
[00:17:51]  I believe that.
[00:17:53]  Yeah, the sound is like, it is very unique.
[00:17:55]  I mean, there's, you know, there's sampling going on, but it isn't necessary.
[00:18:02]  It doesn't feel sample heavy.
[00:18:03]  Brace, you said bouncy.
[00:18:05]  I would say it's like very bouncy, but there's this like lightness or levity to everything.
[00:18:10]  Like it's very, it's, it's like fun.
[00:18:14]  I wouldn't call it like pausey.
[00:18:16]  It's not like pausey, but it, there is the kind of like dry, like manic quality to it.
[00:18:22]  But it's like very, I don't know.
[00:18:24]  I was watching a bunch of the Trio TV stuff on YouTube, which is a bunch of like DVDs that, because this is all, I mean, we can talk about DVD culture for a long time, or I could talk about DVD culture for a long time.
[00:18:39]  But this like early 2000s, Mac Dre put out these, this kind of like, I don't know, it's like kind of like Gonzo, like man on the street, like fake TV show.
[00:18:53]  Like it's crazy to watch now because like this dude would have done so fucking well in the age of social media.
[00:18:59]  He's just like, and he's such a star, you know, like I was watching him.
[00:19:03]  He's at some like BMX, like, I don't know, event somewhere in like Vallejo or outside Sacramento or something.
[00:19:12]  And just like on the street talking to people.
[00:19:14]  And like this dude like does some BMX trick and then just like lands on his face and is like not moving.
[00:19:21]  And they're like, it's, it's horrifying.
[00:19:23]  And this like news crew shows up and Mac Dre is just like, well, the dude's not getting up.
[00:19:28]  I don't know, but saw it on Trill TV first.
[00:19:30]  Remember that?
[00:19:31]  Like, I don't know.
[00:19:32]  He's just like, you know, and then it cuts to everyone just like bouncing around in the streets like fucking having fun downtown Oakland and, you know, wearing like the baggiest burberry shirts you've ever seen in your life.
[00:19:44]  And, um, but what I mean is like there, you know, it's like party and fun, but it isn't like, I don't know, it exists somewhere in between like something like annoyingly positive and something that like is also has like a dark edge to it.
[00:20:01]  I don't know exactly where to place it.
[00:20:02]  Right.
[00:20:03]  I know it often gets compared to Krunk, obviously, because this is kind of coming up at the same time, but they're vastly different.
[00:20:09]  Yeah.
[00:20:10]  Yeah, absolutely vastly different.
[00:20:12]  And like Mac Dre was, from, from what I've heard, the people I spoke to, he was like, he was an everyman.
[00:20:18]  Like he could, he could go into like any kind of situation and come out like best friends with anybody.
[00:20:25]  And like, like the Trill TV DVDs, I remember ordering those off of eBay back in the day.
[00:20:30]  And like, they were like, it was kind of like the Girls Gone Wild of Bay Area rap.
[00:20:35]  Yeah, wrapped DVDs.
[00:20:37]  It definitely was.
[00:20:37]  Yeah, it would be like mixed car mixtapes, kind of like it would be just like dudes on the street making mixtapes of them like driving around Oakland.
[00:20:45]  Yeah, and yeah, I'm so grateful for that footage too, because it's like some of the best footage that we have of Mac Dre just like being himself and doing his thing.
[00:20:54]  Yeah, I used to a couple, a couple, I mentioned this right before we started recording, but my personal connection to Mac Dre is, well, by personal, I mean like third degree connection to Mac Dre is that he robbed a guy I know in a field in Vallejo in the 90s.
[00:21:11]  And then like years later, the guy ran into him at a party and was like, hey, you robbed me once.
[00:21:16]  And Mac Dre was like, oh, damn, that's that's crazy.

=== Mac Dre's Late Arrival (14:36) ===

[00:21:18]  I did that.
[00:21:19]  And like, but you know, it's, it's, it's like by all accounts, like literally all accounts, like he is, he was like an incredibly charismatic guy.
[00:21:27]  You know, everybody fucking loved him.
[00:21:29]  I mean, he was.
[00:21:29]  He was like really a hometown kind of hero.
[00:21:32]  And that's like, that was like just also, you know, by dint of his character, but also just like being really like the face of the hyphi movement.
[00:21:42]  I mean, and to give a little more context in the hyphi movement, a big part of the hyphi movement, well, there's a few parts here, but this really came out of it, which of course is a term for ecstasy.
[00:21:56]  The Fizz face, which Mac Dre famously taught you how to make.
[00:22:03]  It is, you put a look on your face like you smelled some piss.
[00:22:07]  That's right.
[00:22:08]  So it's, it's kind of, I mean, I would, I would, I would challenge our listeners to do that right now.
[00:22:15]  And Ghost Riding the Whip, which is where you put your car into, what was it, neutral?
[00:22:21]  You let your car roll, but you get out of the fucking front seat and you dance alongside of it, which was huge.
[00:22:27]  Like you always used to see people doing that.
[00:22:29]  I've seen people do it on the Bay Bridge.
[00:22:31]  Like I've seen people, I mean, people still do it, but that came out.
[00:22:35]  Yeah, definitely not as much.
[00:22:36]  Also, the most important, specifically to me, part of the Haify movement was the unabashed embracing of being stupid.
[00:22:47]  I mean, going dumb was a big thing, but beyond going dumb, you went stupid doo-doo dumb.
[00:22:54]  Yeah, a couple layers of stupid.
[00:22:57]  Yes.
[00:22:58]  And, you know, in today's cancel culture world, you could have never gotten away with the sort of ableist language that was used in the hyphi movement.
[00:23:07]  Scored by the black-eyed peas, of course.
[00:23:16]  But one of my favorite videos when I was growing up was this Mr. Fab video where they're like literally just driving around the sunset in a yellow shore.
[00:23:24]  Short bus, yes.
[00:23:26]  And like ghost riding it and stuff.
[00:23:28]  So it was like very like, it was energetic.
[00:23:31]  Yes.
[00:23:32]  Yeah.
[00:23:32]  They made it look so easy to do the ghost riding too.
[00:23:36]  But it's not that easy.
[00:23:37]  It's a high-risk behavior.
[00:23:41]  High risk, high reward, though.
[00:23:42]  High risk, high reward.
[00:23:43]  Have you ever done it?
[00:23:45]  No, I've never done it.
[00:23:47]  I've tried, though.
[00:23:49]  I have actually tried.
[00:23:50]  And I scuffed my Adidas.
[00:23:53]  Oh, shit.
[00:23:53]  Well, I mean, that's what I'm saying.
[00:23:54]  Like, that's it.
[00:23:55]  You got to get, that's real shoe leather reporting right there to get into the mind of Hyphi while doing this.
[00:24:02]  So, so, I mean, you know, we're talking early 2000s.
[00:24:06]  Like, you know, it is blowing up in the fucking Bay Area.
[00:24:10]  Mac Dre is like, basically, he's like getting famous.
[00:24:12]  And that's the whole thing.
[00:24:13]  It's like a lot of these guys are like, this is the ascent to getting famous.
[00:24:17]  And like this radio station, KMEL is fucking playing this shit all the time.
[00:24:22]  Like it is just like constant, Like you mentioned, Andre Nicotina, fucking, we were talked earlier too about Jay Stalin.
[00:24:32]  He's still going.
[00:24:32]  He's got his little billboards up all over the place.
[00:24:34]  I mean, you mentioned Mr. Fab and E40.
[00:24:36]  I mean, these guys are all around the same kind of era too, you know, they're all coming up.
[00:24:41]  It's weird now that they're all kind of like famous.
[00:24:44]  And it makes it like that much more heartbreaking that Mac Dre is killed literally like basically a year before this shit goes fully mainstream.
[00:24:53]  Really pops up.
[00:24:54]  Yeah.
[00:24:54]  And like there's there might be some argument to be had of like Mac Dre's death was almost like a catalyst for the other Bay artists, Bay Area artists really blowing up because it was after, I think it was after Mac, I feel like E40's Tell Me When to Go was like a big, big moment for it going like it really blowing up outside of just the Bay Area.
[00:25:17]  And I think that happened after Mac Dre's death, but it did.
[00:25:21]  Yeah, I think it happened a couple of years later.
[00:25:22]  It's like 2006, I believe.
[00:25:24]  But like to think about, I mean, Mac Dre might not have invented the word hypey, but he was the spiritual embodiment of the word.
[00:25:32]  100%.
[00:25:33]  He was himself everywhere he went.
[00:25:36]  Like it seemed like there was no like off switch.
[00:25:38]  Like his performance self was also himself in interviews and just hanging out.
[00:25:45]  So, yeah, it was a huge loss.
[00:26:03]  So, speaking of that loss, you know, we got to set the stage.
[00:26:07]  We've set the stage a little bit.
[00:26:08]  You know, I encourage our listeners to check out, check out some of the stuff.
[00:26:13]  Maybe pause if you have to.
[00:26:14]  Yeah, pause and get stupid for a bit.
[00:26:17]  Take some ecstasy.
[00:26:19]  Pause and take some ecstasy right now.
[00:26:22]  Yes.
[00:26:23]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:26:26]  But, you know, Mac Dre's career and life come to a pretty abrupt, tragic, and kind of mysterious end in Kansas City on Halloween night in 2004.
[00:26:39]  And so what are the circumstances reading through this, you know, you're reporting, talking about like the circumstances and like the guy who organized the show and all this stuff.
[00:26:49]  I mean, obviously, you know, I was not playing rap shows when I was a teenager in the same era, but I was playing a lot of punk shows and the disorganized kind of nature and like money just like disappearing and like everyone being late and like everything y'all getting fucked up really brought me back.
[00:27:08]  But he goes to, he goes to, he's brought out to Kansas City.
[00:27:12]  And tell us the circumstances about.
[00:27:14]  Yeah.
[00:27:15]  So, I mean, this is like 12 days after he releases what would be his last album.
[00:27:23]  He's invited out to Kansas City about a month before from this guy named Damon Whitmill.
[00:27:30]  He's a concert promoter.
[00:27:32]  He's never thrown a concert before.
[00:27:34]  This is his first one.
[00:27:36]  And the idea is that it's a Yuck Mouth, Keek the Sneak, and Mac Dre headlining show with some Kansas City artists opening up beforehand.
[00:27:45]  And that's going to be on October 29th, two days before Halloween.
[00:27:51]  And yeah, I think the deal was that each artist would get paid $12,500 for Mac Dre.
[00:27:59]  He was supposed to get the first $6,000 or he was supposed to get the $6,000 of it up front and then the other $6,500 after the show was completed.
[00:28:12]  And he did get that $6,000.
[00:28:14]  And actually, I wanted to back up and talk about how Damon Whitmill got in touch with Mac Dre.
[00:28:21]  Damon Whitmill is the promoter from Kansas City.
[00:28:23]  Yes, Damon Whitmill is the promoter from Kansas City.
[00:28:27]  Relatively mysterious figure.
[00:28:29]  I don't even know what he looks like.
[00:28:30]  I haven't seen a picture of him.
[00:28:34]  From the documents, though, he's tall.
[00:28:36]  He's like about six foot.
[00:28:39]  And that's kind of all we really know about it, like a tall black guy in Kansas City.
[00:28:45]  He reached out to this Kansas City rapper named 40 Cal.
[00:28:49]  And 40 Cal got in touch with this A area guy named PSD the driver, who's kind of like an artist underneath Mac Dre on the Fizz Entertainment label, pretty low on the label.
[00:29:04]  And then PSD the driver connects Damon Whitmill with Mac Dre's manager, and that's how it all gets set up.
[00:29:12]  And the reason I say that, why it's kind of important, is, and this wasn't in the story, but PSD, the driver, is later implicated in being the one who was the federal informant that took down This Entertainment in 2011.
[00:29:29]  So it's just kind of an interesting thread.
[00:29:32]  You know, he's definitely been at the center of a lot of bad things that have happened to Mac Dre, it seems from my side.
[00:29:41]  But yeah, so that's arranged.
[00:29:45]  The concert, and he gets his $6,000.
[00:29:50]  And on October 27th, two days before the show, it's a Wednesday, Mac Dre and three other friends head to Kansas City.
[00:30:01]  And when he gets there, he's picked up by his friend, Savino Davila, who's currently in a Texas prison.
[00:30:10]  And prosecutors say he was like the cocaine kingpin of Kansas City between 2000 and 2006.
[00:30:19]  He allegedly brought in 330 pounds of Coke in those six years and was at the head of an organization that included like most of his family members or at least a couple of them.
[00:30:34]  And yeah, him and Mac Dre were friends by all accounts and based on what he told me.
[00:30:39]  And he was excited that Mac Dre Mac Dre had hit him up when he found out he was going to do the show to say like, hey, could do you want to kick it and maybe provide like transportation for me and my crew.
[00:30:53]  And perhaps they'd done this before, but Savino was down.
[00:30:58]  And so he picked Mac Dre and his friends up from the airport and loaned him a white van, just like a white like movers van.
[00:31:09]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:10]  Savino just had like as, you know, to do odd jobs.
[00:31:13]  And also his cousin, Harold Piercy, was he offered to have him drive Mac Dre and the crew around.
[00:31:21]  So he'd be driving the van that weekend, which is an important detail to think about.
[00:31:28]  So yeah, they got there on October 27th.
[00:31:32]  The show was on October 29th.
[00:31:35]  Damon Whitmill, first-time concert promoter, he tried to set up a couple events for earlier in the day to kind of help promote the show and make sure more people show up there.
[00:31:47]  And so that the first one was a radio appearance.
[00:31:51]  And the second one was a meet and greet at a record shop in Kansas.
[00:31:56]  And so Mac Dre did not show up to the radio appearance at all.
[00:32:01]  And he showed up late to the record store meet and greet and left after 30 minutes.
[00:32:07]  And The detectives spoke with the record store owner and he said that he had been excited about the event, but that afterwards he regretted it because it happened so quickly and left the store a mess.
[00:32:22]  And, you know, it just basically wasn't a successful meet and greet, I guess.
[00:32:28]  Yeah, that's the thing that seems to sort of follow this story or his Mac Dre's time in Kansas City a lot is that things are fairly chaotic.
[00:32:37]  They happen very late.
[00:32:39]  They're very disorganized and everybody is totally confused.
[00:32:42]  Yep.
[00:32:43]  Yeah.
[00:32:44]  No, that's what it seems like.
[00:32:46]  And it's hard to, because, because everything we really know about this are from these documents and from these transcripts.
[00:32:52]  And there's, you know, there's like a hundred interviews in there.
[00:32:55]  And nobody really has a clear incentive to tell the truth in this story, which was difficult.
[00:33:02]  And, you know, it's worth acknowledging that we might never know the full unabridged truth of this incident.
[00:33:10]  So we get to the show on the 29th.
[00:33:14]  And, you know, as you report here, Mac Dre sort of, well, cribs from his own appearance at the record store and arrives insanely late.
[00:33:24]  I was actually, when I read that, my heart, you know, as an inveterate rocker stopped for a second because he shows up 30 minutes after he's supposed to play, which is one of the most insanely sick moves you can do as a musician.
[00:33:38]  Oh, that's like, that's part for the course for rappers.
[00:33:41]  If you go to rap shows, they're always extremely late.
[00:33:44]  Yeah.
[00:33:45]  And so he shows up at like 11.30.
[00:33:48]  He's supposed to have already been done playing.
[00:33:50]  And like, it just seems like it's, I mean, it devolves into like a total mess.
[00:33:54]  Yeah.
[00:33:55]  So he gets there and he, you know, is late, goes on stage.
[00:34:02]  And from all accounts, he starts inviting people on stage.
[00:34:06]  And if you've ever seen like a video of Mac Dre performing, like he's always got people on stage.
[00:34:11]  Totally.
[00:34:12]  Tons of people.
[00:34:13]  Sometimes he'll go in the crowd too.
[00:34:15]  And, you know, he's just a man of the people.
[00:34:18]  So you can.
[00:34:18]  It's like Iggy.
[00:34:19]  Yeah.
[00:34:20]  Exactly.
[00:34:20]  And he's super tall.
[00:34:21]  So he's always kind of like towering over everyone as this kind of like shepherd of people.
[00:34:26]  Yeah.
[00:34:26]  And he always has some kind of like very flowery or loud hat on too.
[00:34:32]  So you can usually see.
[00:34:33]  Totally.
[00:34:34]  Yeah.
[00:34:35]  Yeah.
[00:34:36]  And this is like one of my favorite parts from the documents is finding this.
[00:34:39]  Like apparently when he was on stage, the DJ, DJ Fresh, who I spoke to, had tried to get him to, you know, clear off the stage because the promoter was going to have to shut down the show because it was a fire hazard.
[00:34:53]  And apparently he went up to Mac Dre and Mac Dre said, that's not my job.
[00:34:57]  Which if you're a big Mac Dre fan, you know, that's a famous song, not my job.
[00:35:03]  Yeah.
[00:35:03]  I'm a pimp slash rapper.
[00:35:04]  That's one of my favorites, to be honest.
[00:35:07]  Well, so, I mean, that's the thing.
[00:35:08]  And like, that is like really a sort of important thing to note for this story is that like, yeah, Mac Dre arrived late, but the sort of subtext to that is that the promoter had to rent this pretty expensive venue for more time in order for Mac Dre to perform.
[00:35:25]  And then Mac Dre, in the middle of performing, basically gets the show shut down because he's, you know, partying on stage with too many people.
[00:35:32]  Yep.
[00:35:33]  And yeah, that's exactly what happened.
[00:35:34]  Like the show got shut down.
[00:35:38]  And presumably the promoter was pissed.
[00:35:42]  And we know from the interview that Damon Whitmill gave with the detectives and the day afterwards, he changes his story three times.
[00:35:51]  The first time he says that he lost money on the show.

=== Promoter's Pissed (02:08) ===

[00:35:55]  And then the second time the detective asked, he tells him that he broke even.
[00:35:59]  And then on the third time, he tells the detectives he actually made money on the show.
[00:36:05]  So you, yeah, you can't really.
[00:36:08]  Hey, I'm bad at meth too.
[00:36:09]  I get it.
[00:36:11]  Yeah.
[00:36:12]  Oh, I'm sick of these chaotic e-girls.
[00:36:16]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:36:17]  And so, so, I mean, Keek the Sneak, Yuck Mouth, they split town.
[00:36:21]  And Mac Dre somehow, it seems like I didn't understand.
[00:36:24]  So he just works out another deal with Whitmill.
[00:36:27]  Like he's like, I'll stick around.
[00:36:29]  Yeah, and that's something I'm still, you know, we still don't really know why Mac Dre decided to stick around.
[00:36:37]  Sabino said, Sabino de Villa, he said that Mac Dre had some, had a girlfriend in Kansas City or a lady there that he was staying with, which could have been an incentive.
[00:36:50]  But at some point, Damon Whitmill offers him another show on Halloween night.
[00:36:58]  And I don't think it's, it's not clear if Damon Whitmill wanted him to perform at the second show.
[00:37:06]  I think it was supposed to just be a meet and greet.
[00:37:09]  Or maybe that's the assumption Mac Dre was under.
[00:37:12]  Because when he got there, he showed up after 30 minutes, went to the VIP section, ordered some bottles, and then they didn't get there fast enough, so he left.
[00:37:24]  So cool.
[00:37:26]  So he was scheduled to do this meet and greet, but the promoter had offered Mac Dre, you know, can you, this is what he tells detectives.
[00:37:34]  He says, Mac Dre, can you actually perform at the meet and greet instead of just doing the meet and greet to help me make back some of the money we lost at the show on Friday?
[00:37:46]  And the promoter tells detectives that Mac Dre agreed to do that.
[00:37:51]  But come Sunday, that's not what happened.
[00:37:53]  Mac Dre left without performing.
[00:37:55]  And according to interviews from the documents, the promoter did not like that.

=== Mac Dre On The Run (15:52) ===

[00:38:03]  And this is where things take kind of a dark turn.
[00:38:08]  Yeah, so I mean, you know, we've got Whitmill has these two shows, the promoter has these two shows.
[00:38:14]  Both of them do not go as planned.
[00:38:17]  Basically, none of his ventures with Mac Dre go as planned.
[00:38:20]  And so Mac Dre leaves this event, this Halloween party.
[00:38:25]  And, you know, within a few hours, you know, he goes to IHOP afterwards.
[00:38:30]  Then within a few hours, he's dead.
[00:38:33]  And so what happens there?
[00:38:36]  Yeah.
[00:38:36]  And so for this part of the timeline, we have one version of the story that Sabino Davila told detectives.
[00:38:46]  That's the version where he actually witnessed the murder.
[00:38:48]  And then there's another version that we can only put together based on a bunch of other interviews.
[00:38:55]  And so that's the one that I'll tell first.
[00:38:59]  He leaves, goes to IHOP.
[00:39:02]  He's still in this rented limousine that the promoter had rented for Dre.
[00:39:07]  And at IHOP, Damon Whitmill calls off the limousine and Mac Dre ends up hitching a ride with Harold Piercy in Sabino Davila's white van.
[00:39:21]  And it's on Highway 71 around somewhere in between 2.30 and 3.30.
[00:39:29]  They're going down the highway and a Black Infinity G35 pulls up alongside and with two separate guns, one being some kind of automatic rifle, they pump over 30 bullets into the driver's side of the van.
[00:39:46]  And Mac Dre is in the back laying down, sleeping at the time.
[00:39:51]  And Harold Piercy is driving.
[00:39:53]  And when he starts, when the shots start hitting the van, he tries to swerve to get away, but the other car, the Black Infinity, ends up hitting it on the side, trying to get it to crash, I suppose.
[00:40:10]  And the van ends up going over the divider, crossing the other side of the lanes, and then crashing into a ditch that throws Mac Dre's body from the van into the muddy ditch where he dies.
[00:40:27]  And he dies from one, basically one shot to the back of the neck.
[00:40:33]  And that's it.
[00:40:34]  You know, there was over 30 shots and only one hit him.
[00:40:37]  And it was, you know, in a very critical spot.
[00:40:42]  And so like, you know, this is a gigantic crime scene.
[00:40:45]  It's like, I think it was like two miles long almost.
[00:40:48]  Yeah.
[00:40:50]  And so it's crazy to think of like Mac Dre, such a hero to the Bay Area, dying in Kansas City so far from home and such like a loud, violent incident.
[00:41:01]  And then there's just no information about it for years.
[00:41:05]  So, yeah.
[00:41:06]  And the crazy thing that you mentioned, the article too, is that there's an hour before the cops get there.
[00:41:12]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:13]  So the driver, Harold Piercy, he gets out and.
[00:41:19]  He's not hit.
[00:41:20]  He's not hit.
[00:41:21]  No.
[00:41:23]  He is basically uninjured.
[00:41:25]  And he says when he gets out, he sees a pair of headlights coming directly for him.
[00:41:31]  And he thinks that it's a car coming to finish the job.
[00:41:35]  But he runs, no cell phone.
[00:41:38]  It got lost in the crash.
[00:41:39]  And he runs back to a motel that Dre's friends were staying at.
[00:41:45]  Dre had been staying at a Sheraton, but his friends were at like a cheapier, like shittier hotel across town.
[00:41:51]  And he gets there and the clerks at the motel, yeah, the front desk clerks, they report seeing him covered in mud and he tells them to call the police and runs up to get Mac Dre's friends.
[00:42:06]  And then the front desk, they see him.
[00:42:09]  They see him with the other friends run back out a couple minutes later.
[00:42:13]  And I think that they were already there by the time cops showed up.
[00:42:19]  Like the friends got there first.
[00:42:21]  And I think this is just me guessing.
[00:42:24]  I think they might have taken some stuff out of Mac Dre's pockets because all that was in there was like a hotel, his room key and like a 24-hour fitness membership card that has his name.
[00:42:38]  No wallet or money or anything.
[00:42:41]  So yeah, it's interesting how long he laid there and why nobody called like right away.
[00:42:48]  I mean, I guess he lost his cell phone, but it's definitely interesting.
[00:42:53]  I mean, to run, you're not running for help.
[00:42:55]  You're running to the place where your friends are staying at.
[00:42:58]  I mean, that's like a decision.
[00:43:00]  You know what I mean?
[00:43:01]  Yeah, true.
[00:43:01]  It's not like it was like just like down the next, oh, we happened to crash right next to the place where we were staying.
[00:43:09]  You know?
[00:43:10]  No, yeah, that was a deliberate decision.
[00:43:12]  I guess suppose he chose going to get Mac Dre's friends versus calling for authorities, which, I mean, in that, in that culture, like you don't really call for authorities.
[00:43:21]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:43:22]  Ever.
[00:43:22]  And why would they?
[00:43:24]  Like, you know.
[00:43:25]  So you said that, I mean, the second kind of big part of the story, something you mentioned, which is that, you know, yeah, Mac Dre, this like here of the Bay Area and this like about to finally make it break on through star like dies in a ditch like, you know, hundreds of miles from home.
[00:43:47]  And then no one knows anything about it.
[00:43:49]  I mean, that's the whole other part of this story is that like this has basically been a mystery, you know, kind of still is.
[00:43:56]  I mean, it's unsolved, right?
[00:43:58]  Technically To this day, but there really wasn't like any good, real information about what the hell happened like coming out when, like when this when, when the crash happened and when he was killed.
[00:44:13]  Yeah, there's been.
[00:44:14]  There's been no real like good information, and there's been.
[00:44:18]  There was a couple articles written about the the shooting in this like small Kansas City alt weekly called the Pitch and it was like all the weekly yeah right, and really all the all the writing about Mac Mac Dre's death is is very like sophomoric.
[00:44:38]  It doesn't seem like the journalistic world really like delved into it at the time, which is very in line with how how they like approached hip-hop music at the time too.
[00:44:48]  Um, so it wasn't really dug into, and the one article from the Pitch that I could find um very much like just blamed Mac Dre and like the people he was hanging out with for for the murder, and so I was just like I can't believe nothing well has been written about this.
[00:45:07]  Is that what brought you into the story?
[00:45:10]  Yeah well, what brought me into the story?
[00:45:13]  Weirdly, I just wanted to write about Mac Dre's like influence on the Portland music scene.
[00:45:20]  It really had nothing to do with his his murder um, but I thought that I might touch on it in the story.
[00:45:26]  So I requested the documents from from the Kansas CITY Police Department and they wanted 114 for him and I did not have that much money at the time.
[00:45:37]  Um, so I, I um asked my friend who I, who i'd met in an Oxford house uh, a halfway house earlier, like six years ago, and he ended up paying for half the documents.
[00:45:51]  Yeah, he was a huge Mac Dre guy and I know you guys have met Mac Dre guys before like they.
[00:45:56]  They know every lyric and oh yeah oh, it is yes, that's a time.
[00:46:02]  I've also met a lot of halfway house guys before too.
[00:46:05]  It's all yes uh, and you've had my, my previous, my most memorable experience, and a lot of them are Mac Dre guys.
[00:46:12]  Yes uh, my most memorable experience with one is I jammed with a guy once and then he immediately sold my bass and bass ample um for meth, which you know respect.
[00:46:21]  Um yeah, that happened to my uh, Super Nintendo really Really, at Oxford.
[00:46:26]  Yeah, they sold my Super Nintendo.
[00:46:29]  So we got Mac Dre dead here.
[00:46:32]  And then the cops kind of like stumbling around trying to figure out what it was because Mac Dre was not a known quantity to the Kansas City Police Department at this time.
[00:46:41]  They did not know who Mac Dre was.
[00:46:43]  Like they didn't realize that he was like kind of an important figure.
[00:46:47]  And it seems like the way that the murder case was handled at first was just like almost like stumbling into suspect after like, you know, this sort of like confusion of leads that the police are pursuing.
[00:46:59]  So yeah, after like immediately after the shooting, cops are basically barraged with tons of rumors.
[00:47:09]  And most of them are surrounding this one rapper, Kansas City rapper named Anthony Fatone Watkins.
[00:47:20]  He's younger than Mac Dre.
[00:47:21]  He's about 24.
[00:47:22]  Mac Dre was 34 when he was killed.
[00:47:25]  And he's associated with the 51st Street Crips.
[00:47:29]  And in the years leading up to Mac Dre's killing, Fat Tone's name is definitely on the rise.
[00:47:36]  He's released three records that were fairly successful in the Kansas City area.
[00:47:43]  On the last one, the cover of it is featured him in a hospital bed after getting treated for a gunshot, kind of like the ghetto boys Bushwick Bill did in the early 90s.
[00:47:56]  Yeah, I was about to say, yeah.
[00:47:58]  And then that's kind of a testament to the reputation and the image that he was kind of bolstering.
[00:48:05]  Another thing that happened a couple years, I think that this was in 2001, Fat Tone was arrested and charged with the killing of his 17-year-old girlfriend who was pregnant with his kid at the time.
[00:48:20]  He was in jail for about nine months on that charge, but was eventually released.
[00:48:26]  No witnesses would come forward, or the witnesses that did come forward recanted their statements.
[00:48:32]  And so Fat Tone is known as somewhat of a menace in Kansas City.
[00:48:38]  So when the cops start getting these rumors that it could have been him, they definitely listened.
[00:48:46]  And at the center of those rumors is this supposed altercation that happened between Fat Tone and Mac Dre at the show on October 29th.
[00:48:59]  Now, I don't think any altercation actually happened, but that's what the rumors were: that maybe Fat Tone had tried to get on stage.
[00:49:08]  Mac Dre wouldn't let him.
[00:49:11]  Fat Tone got mad about that.
[00:49:13]  But from all trusted accounts, I don't even think Fat Tone was there that night.
[00:49:20]  I talked to the DJ, DJ Fresh, who DJ'd that night, and he said that, and this might get a tiny bit confusing, but he said that in between the two shows that Mac Dre did in Kansas City on October 29th and Halloween night,
[00:49:38]  night he died dj fresh dj'd another show that saturday october 30th where fat tone was was there and got into an altercation with someone else uh mac joy wasn't there that night but that kind of it was like enough to like become a to make it you know there the story takes on it a life of its own at that point you Absolutely.
[00:50:00]  Absolutely.
[00:50:01]  And people, you know, kind of wanted it to be Fat Tone in a way because it's a very, it's a very exploitational crime, like two rappers killing each other.
[00:50:13]  Absolutely.
[00:50:15]  People want to hear that kind of stuff, especially in 2004.
[00:50:19]  But from what I found in the documents, police knew relatively quickly that Fat Tone had nothing to do with it.
[00:50:26]  Fat Tone goes to the police station himself, talks to detectives, says he wasn't there that night and that him and Mac Dre are friends.
[00:50:35]  He even mentions a song that him and Mac Dre had did together that was on like a Bay Area compilation like mixtape.
[00:50:45]  But still, rumors persist that he actually did a diss song, like Fat Tone did a Mac Dre diss song where he said that he wanted to kill the Fizzleman.
[00:50:56]  And that's never been found.
[00:50:58]  Like you can find people online talking about it, but like I can't find that song.
[00:51:02]  I don't think it exists.
[00:51:05]  Yeah, he like even told police he was like, I'm not even worried about anything because I know I didn't do anything.
[00:51:11]  So like I'll just talk to you, whatever.
[00:51:12]  It's cool.
[00:51:13]  Yes, yeah, exactly.
[00:51:15]  He was very, he seemed to be very open with police, but in public, I think the theory is that he wasn't so forthcoming with the knowledge that he didn't do it because it bolstered his image and helped him to sell records.
[00:51:35]  So, you know, he could be a victim of clout chasing, one of the first victims of clout chasing.
[00:51:41]  And he is a victim because it ends up being a majority of the money.
[00:51:43]  Yes, speaking of two months later.
[00:51:46]  He's killed.
[00:51:48]  Someone thinks that, I mean, you know, it's rumors, but they think because in retaliation for Mac Dre's death.
[00:51:55]  So yeah.
[00:51:56]  Six months later, a Bay Area promoter and artist in his own right, Mac Minister, real name is Andre Dow.
[00:52:08]  He gets in contact with Fat Tone and says, and lures him to Las Vegas, basically, under the guise of performing with Snoop Dogg.
[00:52:16]  And Mac Minister had appeared on a Snoop Dogg song in the 1990s.
[00:52:21]  So it's very believable that he would know him and potentially could get him onto the Snoop Dogg bill.
[00:52:30]  So Fat Tone and his friend go to Vegas.
[00:52:35]  When they get there, they start gambling.
[00:52:39]  They're there for a day.
[00:52:40]  And then the next thing you know, they're found about 10 miles outside. of the Vegas Strip and a cul-de-sac and basically like this construction project.
[00:52:52]  And they're both dead, had been shot with an automatic rifle of some sort.
[00:52:57]  Fat Tone is a little bit away from the car, like he'd been trying to get away.
[00:53:01]  And his friend is found in the driver's seat, murdered.
[00:53:05]  And then a couple months after that, the call girl, Lee, Lee-Denae Lorrison is her name from Utah.
[00:53:16]  Detectives say that she had been pimped out by Andre Dow and his friend and was quite possibly there when the murder happened.
[00:53:25]  She's found dead with one shot to the head and her car is lit on fire.
[00:53:31]  And Mac Minister goes on the run.
[00:53:34]  And he's on the run for just about a year.
[00:53:38]  And during that time, he records the intro to the rapper of the games sophomore album, The Doctor's Advocate, and releases a couple songs.
[00:53:51]  One song called Fuck the Law, he releases while he's on the run.

=== Crip Witness Lying (08:57) ===

[00:53:56]  And then he makes like the FBI's top 10 most wanted list.
[00:54:01]  And America's Most Wanted does a segment about him.
[00:54:06]  And he becomes like number 1,000 or whatever of people that are arrested because of America's Most Wanted, which is kind of funny.
[00:54:16]  So he goes down.
[00:54:17]  And I think for a lot of people, like that was sort of like, I mean, the sum up of the Mac Dre case is like, well, all right, you know, he got killed by this Kansas City rapper and then one of his friends killed the guy.
[00:54:31]  And that's kind of it.
[00:54:33]  But that never, like, the case was never closed.
[00:54:36]  Like, the cops never figured out who killed Mac Dre.
[00:54:40]  And like, you know, obviously there were other people in that car too.
[00:54:44]  And none of them being Monsieur Tone.
[00:54:49]  And so the question remains, like, who was in that?
[00:54:53]  Who was in that Infinity that shot the car?
[00:54:56]  And why did they do it?
[00:54:58]  Like, why was Mac Dre killed?
[00:55:00]  Yeah.
[00:55:00]  And none of that stuff is really known or reported on.
[00:55:07]  A lot of Mac Dre's friends, like Jay Diggs, a famous Bay Area rapper, he's done interviews where he says, we know it's not Fat Tone and the people who did it have been taken care of.
[00:55:20]  take that to mean what you will.
[00:55:22]  But it seems like...
[00:55:24]  Vlad from VladTV has said that too.
[00:55:27]  Yes, yeah.
[00:55:28]  All of these interviews I'm talking about are with Vlad TV.
[00:55:32]  And Vlad TV is kind of like poking and prodding at these people, trying to get them to snitch on somebody.
[00:55:39]  But yes, but nothing's really known.
[00:55:43]  I think you guys are exactly right.
[00:55:45]  Like, I think the public, once the Fat Tone saga kind of ended, that kind of put a neat little bow on the story.
[00:55:52]  And they were just like, oh, you know, rappers be killing each other.
[00:55:56]  That just happens.
[00:55:58]  But that wasn't what happened at all.
[00:56:00]  And so aside from those fat tone tips, the police and the main detective on this case is this guy named Everett Babcock, who is kind of a celebrity detective.
[00:56:14]  He was on the first 48, that A ⁇ E show about solving a crime in the first 48 hours.
[00:56:22]  Apparently, it's very popular.
[00:56:23]  I never watched any of this kind of stuff.
[00:56:25]  I used to watch.
[00:56:26]  I used to catch reruns back in the day.
[00:56:29]  But he's like this, he's a big man, gray hair.
[00:56:37]  He's somewhat of a celebrity around that department, I can imagine.
[00:56:40]  And he shows up on the scene about six hours after the murder.
[00:56:46]  And the first real tip that he gets is about the Infinity.
[00:56:51]  Somebody called it in, called in that it had been abandoned near their house and it looked like foul play had been involved.
[00:57:01]  And so the detectives get there about 5.30 p.m. on November 1st.
[00:57:07]  And the car is completely totaled.
[00:57:10]  There's paint scratches from where it had hit the white van.
[00:57:15]  There's gunshots in the car, but imagine the gunshots were fired from inside the car.
[00:57:23]  So the metal is curling outwards.
[00:57:25]  So it looks like the shooting, the shooters had been inside the car.
[00:57:29]  And the tipster said that he saw right around 4.30, two men come and ditch the car and then get into a blue van.
[00:57:41]  And so fairly quickly, two other people begin coming into the fold here, two other suspects.
[00:57:51]  And their names are Calvert Antoine, who goes by Papoose, and Taryn Smith, who goes by Tea Baby.
[00:58:00]  And they're also, they're 50 Street, 51st Street Crip Gang members as well.
[00:58:07]  And I can't find any connections to Damon Whitmill between them.
[00:58:12]  But the theory that comes forward that a bunch of jailhouse snitches tell the police is that Damon Whitmill, the promoter, paid these two shooters somewhere between five and 10 grand to go and kill Mac Dre for not performing at the second show and for being unable to put on these concerts.
[00:58:39]  So that's the story that comes out.
[00:58:42]  Yeah, because I mean, the whole thing with Fat Tone is that there's not really, I mean, if you take the fight out of the picture, which it looks like that did not occur, there is absolutely no motive.
[00:58:52]  And so the only person with like a real motive and really means would be Whitmill here.
[00:58:59]  And in your reporting, it seems like he kind of becomes like the crux of like, well, of the whodunit, essentially.
[00:59:07]  Like, you know, this is kind of the person that the evidence points to may have ordered the hit.
[00:59:13]  Yeah, he becomes the person with the most incentive out of everyone.
[00:59:18]  And another person that I find out about from the documents is Savino Davila, who we mentioned earlier, as being the cocaine kingpin of Kansas between 2000 and 2006, currently in prison.
[00:59:32]  But it was his van that Mac Dre was riding in when he was murdered.
[00:59:37]  And so when I first saw his name and how it had never been released to the public before, I'm thinking that maybe this guy has something to do with it.
[00:59:47]  And he still might.
[00:59:49]  It's one of the stories that he tells detectives in 2008.
[00:59:53]  This is four years after the murder, two years after he's been arrested.
[01:00:00]  He's still fighting his case, hoping to not do 30 years for being a drug kingpin.
[01:00:06]  And so he goes to Detective Babcock and tells him this story where he was actually there at the time of the murder.
[01:00:16]  He says that he talked to Mac Dre in the limousine before he left his final show, and Mac Dre said he wasn't feeling safe at the time.
[01:00:27]  And then that he gets in his car and he's following the white van as it's making its way towards the hotel.
[01:00:37]  And he sees this Black Infinity pull up and shoot his van with his cousin riding in it, Mac Dre in the back.
[01:00:45]  And he witnesses the whole thing.
[01:00:47]  He tells detectives, he even tells detectives that it was the promoter that had likely ordered it.
[01:00:55]  But then he says something interesting.
[01:00:57]  Says that he decides to just get off the freeway, turn off his phone and go home and go to sleep, which is definitely an interesting move.
[01:01:07]  If you'd just seen your van with your cousin and you know rap superstar Mac Dre get get shot up.
[01:01:14]  So it's hard to believe that story.
[01:01:17]  But but my theory is that's extreme extreme, not my job.
[01:01:21]  Energy very much, trying to exit yourself out as much as you can.
[01:01:28]  Yeah that's, that's real, none of my business kind of thing.
[01:01:30]  Thinking yes exactly, he's trying to, he's trying to get the best deal possible, trying to tell the detectives what happened to Mac Dre without implicating himself.
[01:01:40]  Yeah and, and I think that implication might lie in Damon Whitmill, having called Savino De Villa, you know, saying like, where where are you?
[01:01:49]  Where is Mac Dre in the van?
[01:01:51]  Maybe Savino told him and then later Mac Dre winds up dead and he feels like a certain amount of culpability, he feels guilty because they were friends um I, I believe that I think they were close and I don't think Seveno, you know, wanted him to die.
[01:02:08]  Um, but I don't think that he was above.
[01:02:12]  Uh lying, lying about the, the situation for himself to get a better deal.
[01:02:18]  Listen up, i'm about to get dope.
[01:02:21]  It ain't nothing but some shit.
[01:02:22]  I wrote about a young brother deep in the game.
[01:02:25]  They call me Mac Dre and i'm keeping the name.
[01:02:27]  I'm scoring Nike shoes.
[01:02:36]  So we've got Papoose and T-Baby here as looking like the likely shooters.
[01:02:43]  And so tell me, how do these guys kind of come into the picture?
[01:02:46]  Yeah, so Papoose and T-baby, they're 51st uh, street crip crip gang members by all accounts.

=== Impressive Puzzle Solved (06:18) ===

[01:02:54]  Um they, they've been in and out of jail, basically their their whole adult lives.
[01:02:59]  So they almost immediately look kind of like with fat tone.
[01:03:03]  Their, their names get get thrown in with the tips um, as having been involved.
[01:03:09]  Uh they, they had been in and out of jail.
[01:03:13]  Um, I don't know about their connection with Damon Whitmill, but they, they had been talking About the murder in jail in CCA Leavensworth while they were locked up for other crimes.
[01:03:29]  And the kind of real aha moment for me was when I had been looking up their names in the state court database and I found that they'd been arrested together with automatic rifles and drugs only four months after Mac Dre's killing.
[01:03:48]  That kind of that definitely made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up where I was like, I thought these two could be involved, but now I know, now I know for sure.
[01:03:58]  And they both were murdered separately.
[01:04:02]  And from what I can tell, completely unrelated incidents.
[01:04:07]  Calvert Antoine was murdered in 2013 and T-Baby was murdered in 2008.
[01:04:15]  So quite a long time after the murder for both of them, but it's interesting.
[01:04:21]  They were both murdered in cars in the same way that Mac Dre had been gunned down while driving.
[01:04:30]  So almost everybody involved in this story is in prison or is dead.
[01:04:38]  One major figure that is location seems to be unaccounted for is Whitmill.
[01:04:45]  And so, you know, like you said, a lot of the reporting sort of, you know, Whitmill does seem to have a lot of the motive and the means, et cetera, for doing this.
[01:04:54]  Where did he end up?
[01:04:55]  Where is Whitmill?
[01:04:57]  That is the huge mystery of the case.
[01:05:01]  The closest I got to getting in touch with him, because most of these people I found on Facebook, you know, this is like a 15-year-old case.
[01:05:10]  You know, a lot of them, a lot of people were either dead or in jail or their family members were on Facebook and I was able to reach them that way.
[01:05:19]  But with Whitmill, I couldn't even find a single family member of his.
[01:05:24]  I can't find a picture of him.
[01:05:25]  All we have is his interviews with detectives, which he gave three.
[01:05:31]  And the closest I got was I talked to his lawyer, his lawyer, Carl Boosie, who said that he works with him still doing some child support stuff, but that he couldn't pass any questions to me because he didn't have an email.
[01:05:50]  The lawyer didn't, which is kind of hard to believe.
[01:05:55]  Very interesting.
[01:05:57]  And I haven't heard anything since the story came out about Whitmill.
[01:06:01]  So as far as I know, he's still alive and in Kansas City.
[01:06:06]  And that's about it.
[01:06:09]  So, I mean, you know, that's wild because this has essentially been a case that, like, like you said, like, most people haven't really looked into.
[01:06:17]  I mean, I think a lot of people write off like, you know, something like Mac Dre getting murdered as like a rap beef.
[01:06:23]  You know, like this is something that like, oh, yeah, like black people do this all the time.
[01:06:26]  Rappers do this all the time.
[01:06:27]  You know, it's like, it's cut and dry.
[01:06:29]  You know, another rapper killed him over at Kansas City.
[01:06:32]  I mean, that, that's how I've seen it like essentially promoted a bunch is that like, oh, it's a Kansas City, California beef, which I'm like, come on.
[01:06:41]  Yeah.
[01:06:41]  Kansas City versus whole state.
[01:06:42]  Give me a break.
[01:06:44]  But, you know, it was really impressive reading this article, like getting seeing like these details that haven't really been put together.
[01:06:53]  And like, so the police, you know, sort of a final question concerning the case is like, the police kind of just seem like they've just, you know, never solved it.
[01:07:01]  Like, why is that?
[01:07:03]  That's a really good question.
[01:07:04]  And it's a question that I wished I could have asked the detectives, but the Kansas City Police Department shut me out immediately after getting the documents.
[01:07:13]  And a strange thing that happened was after they sent them to me in like 10 separate emails, because it was just, it was so, the files were so big.
[01:07:22]  I started getting these calls from a guy.
[01:07:24]  He called me three times saying that he was from the Kansas City Police Department and that the documents were going to be, you know, like $2,000.
[01:07:36]  He's like, it'll be at least $2,000.
[01:07:38]  And I had to be like, sir, I already got the documents.
[01:07:42]  I don't know if there was some kind of mistake, but it was weird.
[01:07:45]  It was weird how they shut me out.
[01:07:47]  And then there was that guy calling.
[01:07:50]  And yeah, so I was able to get a hold of Everett Babcock.
[01:07:56]  I called a number that was in the documents.
[01:07:58]  I didn't think it would work.
[01:07:59]  It was like 16 years old.
[01:08:01]  And he answered and immediately said he couldn't talk.
[01:08:05]  And then I asked him, I was like, I have all your notes.
[01:08:12]  It looks like you solved the case.
[01:08:14]  And he said, yeah, well, if you have the notes, then you know who did it.
[01:08:21]  And which was a pretty big moment.
[01:08:24]  But to speak on why they didn't solve it, I think the Kansas City Police Department has so many cold cases.
[01:08:33]  It's sometimes the murder capital of the U.S.
[01:08:36]  Yeah.
[01:08:36]  But yeah, they have a large amount of cold cases.
[01:08:40]  And I think when the year ends, a new year starts and they don't really look back.
[01:08:46]  And then another component is that the rap community, they've been done dirty by the police before.
[01:08:53]  So there's not a lot of incentive to cooperate.
[01:08:58]  The Kansas City Police Department, they did not get a lot of cooperation from basically both sides of this case, which is understandable.
[01:09:06]  So that's one reason why they probably couldn't solve it or didn't care to anyways.

=== Impressive Reporting Revealed (03:20) ===

[01:09:12]  Well, your piece really puts everything together.
[01:09:14]  I mean, it's a really impressive, I mean, a really, really impressive piece of reporting.
[01:09:19]  We'll definitely link to it, obviously, in the show notes and encourage all of our listeners to check it out.
[01:09:25]  It's just meticulously done.
[01:09:27]  And I can't imagine what it must have felt like to kind of like put all this together, I'm assuming during COVID quarantine, like a little bit of kind of like, you know, really like putting a little, you know, kind of board together and piecing all of these notes almost like out of a TV show or something.
[01:09:45]  It's just a really incredible piece.
[01:09:47]  Everyone can check it out.
[01:09:48]  It's called Who Killed Mac Dre.
[01:09:50]  It's up on Passion of the Weiss, passionoftheweiss.com, passionweiss.com.
[01:09:56]  Yes, ran by journalist Jeff Weiss.
[01:09:59]  And yeah.
[01:10:01]  And yeah, it's an incredible story.
[01:10:04]  And I didn't expect it to take me where it did.
[01:10:09]  So thanks so much for joining us, Donald.
[01:10:11]  It's been a pleasure.
[01:10:12]  Yes.
[01:10:13]  Thank you guys so much for having me.
[01:10:16]  I'm a huge fan of the show.
[01:10:17]  And it's a dream come true to be on here talking about Mac Dre and putting on for the Bay Area like this.
[01:10:24]  It feels good.
[01:10:25]  The Haifi movement will live on.
[01:10:28]  Thank you, Donald.
[01:10:29]  We will see you next to the yellow short bus dancing like a fool with no one in the driver's seat.
[01:10:36]  That's right.
[01:10:38]  When we come up to the light, the people all stare both.
[01:10:42]  Niggas in the pens with the dreadlock hell.
[01:10:44]  Smoke everywhere.
[01:10:45]  Waving at Madeline on them wood grain divins with the license plate rally.
[01:10:49]  Doing what we want to.
[01:10:51]  Hanging out the sunroof.
[01:10:52]  Mentally ignorant.
[01:10:53]  What we go dumb to gas break dip.
[01:10:56]  We call it yoking.
[01:10:57]  Do it.
[01:10:57]  Don't let in your whip.
[01:10:59]  We call it dosing.
[01:11:00]  Get stupid.
[01:11:01]  It's what we do good Don't try to whip While we dancing on the field I am feeling good Grace, what's your favorite MacJay song?
[01:11:09]  Hard It has to be Thistle Dance.
[01:11:11]  I heard that song every single day throughout my teenage years.
[01:11:16]  And you know, it's funny is I never really did ecstasy during that period either.
[01:11:22]  But has to be, what's yours?
[01:11:24]  I think Not My Job is my favorite.
[01:11:26]  It's a classic.
[01:11:27]  Yeah.
[01:11:28]  Trying to, oh man, I could, I can listen.
[01:11:31]  There's like, yeah, I like when it's real smooth and light like that.
[01:11:35]  It's nice.
[01:11:36]  Yeah.
[01:11:38]  I like Jay Stalin's ballads.
[01:11:41]  He does.
[01:11:42]  He's got some real bad, mostly about money, but they're good.
[01:11:45]  They're, you know, it's still love.
[01:11:48]  Yeah, 100%.
[01:11:50]  You know, it's funny.
[01:11:52]  It's, it's sideshows became such a huge thing, I think, in the bay, like really after a lot of this stuff.
[01:11:59]  And they fucking rule.
[01:12:02]  Yeah.
[01:12:02]  The Annihilation Time House used to be, that was, well, I guess still is.
[01:12:06]  I don't know if they call it that anymore is right next to this gas station in Oakland.
[01:12:10]  There'd be like 200 cars there every single night.
[01:12:13]  Gotta say, made me want to learn how to drive because I'm like, you don't even have to go very far.
[01:12:16]  They're all stuck next to each other.
[01:12:18]  You can just sit in it.
[01:12:19]  All right.
[01:12:20]  Well, with that being said, my name is Brace.
[01:12:23]  I'm Liz.
[01:12:24]  We are, of course, as always, joined by producer Young Chomsky.
[01:12:29]  This has been Truan, and we'll see you next time.