As the rap world mourns Eazy-E’s AIDS-related death, a new study from out of the University of Sydney is claiming that murder is the leading cause of death for rappers.
Dianna Theadora Kenny, a professor of psychology and music at the University of Sydney, used statistics from examining the deaths of more than 13,000 musicians of all genres and determined that murder has captured the lives of more than 50 percent of known rappers.
“Murder accounted for 6.0% of deaths across the sample, but was the cause of 51% of deaths in rap musicians and 51.5% of deaths for hip hop musicians, to date,” Kenny tells The Washington Post. “This could be due to these genres’ strong associations with drug-related crime and gang culture.”
Embed from Getty ImagesRappers Who Died Before The Age Of 25
Despite the shocking revelation, Kenny isn’t suggesting that starting a career as a Hip-Hop artist equates to a death sentence. Especially since the culture is still relatively young.
“In the case of the newer genres, it’s worth pointing out that members of these genres have not yet lived long enough to fall into the highest-risk ages for heart- and liver-related illnesses,” she wrote in the study. “Consequently, they had the lowest rates of death in these categories.”
Unfortunately, Kenny’s study has been reinforced twice in the past month as Bay Area rapper The Jacka and South African rapper Flabba were both shot and stabbed to death, respectively.
H/T: VIBE
