Rapper’s stabbing cancels LA music festival

Rapper Drakeo the Ruler was reportedly stabbed to death backstage at the Once Upon a Time in LA music festival. The festival, featuring artists like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, was canceled in response.

Drakeo, whose real name is Darrell Caldwell, was allegedly stabbed in a backstage brawl at Los Angeles’ Exposition Park on Saturday night. Video footage posted to Instagram showed a group of men fighting, while another shot showed Caldwell lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

Caldwell was rushed to hospital, where he died of his injuries, TMZ reported.

Snoop Dogg, who was due to headline the festival alongside such hip-hop heavyweights as Ice Cube, 50 Cent and The Game, left immediately after the brawl broke out, and the entire festival was canceled soon afterwards.

Described by Los Angeles Times journalist Jeff Weiss as "the most original West Coast stylist in decades,” Caldwell’s rise to fame has not been a smooth ascent. A stint in jail on firearms charges in 2017 was followed by an arrest in 2018 on charges of murder, attempted murder, and gang crimes relating to the shooting dead of a 24-year-old man in 2016. Facing life behind bars, Caldwell was acquitted of the first two charges in 2019 and freed from jail in 2020 after he took a plea deal on the gang offenses.

After releasing a mixtape partly recorded over the phone from Men's Central Jail in LA, Caldwell released his first studio album, ‘The Truth Hurts’, in February. He was 28 years old when he died.