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EVENTS
Hip Hop Legend: Chris Lighty
RnB/Hip Hop | Friday 19th October 2012 | Ladan
As the Hip Hop industry mourns the death of Chris Lighty, we ask; what events lead to the untimely death of this exceptional man?
Chris Lightey was a Hip Hop Legend, mogul and manager to dozens of music heavyweights including LL Cool J, P Diddy and 50cent. In what had been ruled to be a suicide by the investigating bodies, Lighty was found dead outside his home in the Bronx, New York after the police received a phone call on Thursday 30th of August at approximately 11.am. When the officers responded to the call they found Lighty dead with a gunshot wound to the head and semi automatic lying beside him. Lighty was only 44 Years Old.
Although Lighty was not known in the general public he was a highly influential in R&B and Hip Hop. He began his career in the 1980’s and after working briefly for Russell Simmons Rush Artist Management he decided to launch his own artist management firm Violater. Lighty was highly successful in bringing in great talent and doing whatever was necessary to propel his artists even further he is even said to be the man behind 50cent’s lucrative Vitamin Water deal. The firm put a number of achievements down on their list with his clients being some of the most famous people in the industry. However after several years of successful artist management the good times did not last, the industry changed and this proved to be difficult with Violater suffering significant financial losses as a result.
Reports claim that at the time of his death Lighty had been dealing with a number of financial difficulties, a reported IRS debt of more than 5 million dollars and an impending divorce. Although these do make strong grounds for the suicide allegations some other parties have also suggested that there may be more suspicious factors at play. 50cent also voiced his concerns; he claimed that close to the time of the mogul’s death he and Lighty had just landed a multimillion dollar deal and that he could not see any logical explanation as to why Lighty may have wished to end his own life. 50 even stated that he’d be financing an investigation into the death.
Regardless of all the allegation and suspicions one thing is clear, Chris Lighty was an exceptional man and business person, he supported and inspired many musicians and was a great father and role model not to mention he made an extraordinary contribution to the Hip Hop and R&B industry. More recently on the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards all the former artists from Violater came together for a special tribute honouring this incredible man.
You can watch a clip of the tribute below.
By LS
