Rapper Kidd Creole Convicted Of Manslaughter For Killing Homeless Man He Believed Was Gay
Rapper Kidd Creole Convicted Of Manslaughter For Killing Homeless Man He Believed Was Gay
Nathaniel Glover, better known as rap pioneer Kidd Creole, is facing 25 years in prison after being convicted of first-degree manslaughter.
Nathaniel Glover, a founding member of the group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, went on trial in New York in March for the murder of John Jolly, a homeless man the rapper allegedly stabbed twice in the chest with a steak knife in August 2017.
According to court documents, Nathaniel Glover became enraged when he thought the victim was gay and had been hitting on him. In a police interview, he reportedly said,
“To tell the truth, I thought he was gay, and because I thought he was gay, and he was saying that to me, ‘What’s up,’ I was thinking that he was thinking I was gay.”
In the moments after the stabbing, Glover reportedly washed the knife in his office at an area copy shop and dumped it in a sewer at the Bronx subway station. Police recovered the weapon the following day, which is when Jolly died at the hospital and Glover was subsequently arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
Glover‘s attorney claimed his client had stabbed the victim in self-defense, and that it was due to a combination of alcohol and a sedative he was given at the hospital. Prosecutors, on the other hand, argued Glover had no reason to be afraid of John Jolly, pointing out his potential homophobia.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five formed in the Bronx in 1976 and were pivotal to the development of hip-hop music. The group is credited as pioneers of socially conscious protest rap, illustrating the harsh realities of ghetto life in their song “The Message” and calling attention to drug abuse in “White Lines.” They became the first hip-hop act to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2021, they were given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Glover is being held at Rikers Island and is set to be sentenced on May 4.
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