The hip-hop community continues to mourn the loss of Migos’ rapper Takeoff. On Nov. 1, Takeoff, whose legal name is Kirshnik Khari Ball, was at 810 Billiards & Bowling when the incident occurred shortly after 2:30 a.m.
He was only 28-years-old.
ABC News tapped A.R. Shaw, author of “Trap History” and Atlanta Daily World executive editor, to shed light on Takeoff’s legacy.
“Takeoff was somewhat of the glue of Migos,” Shaw said. “A lot of people don’t know this, but early on Quavo was a star quarterback in high school. Offset also played football. Takeoff was the one who actually got into the music first and he got [Quavo and Offset] to join a group and create great music. Starting in 2011 and coming out with their signature album Culture, they pretty much reshaped the hip-hop community. So it’s not just a loss for the Atlanta community. This is something that’s global and that’s impacting the hip-hop community worldwide.”
Takeoff, who is the nephew of rapper Quavo, recently released an album Only Built For Infinity Links as the duo became known as “Unc and Phew.”
Their impact on rap changed the culture of rap music.
“They re-introduced what is called the triplet rhyme scheme that has been duplicated by artists such as Jay Z, Drake, and Jay Electronica,” Shaw said. “You can hear the triplet rhyme scheme throughout many artists’ music and it started in this generation with Migos – artists such as Three 6 Mafia and Bone used the scheme during the 1990s. So when you talk about culture, the Culture album, shifted culture in a way that was a phenomenon where you saw individuals copy not just the way they rap, but also the music as well. So [Migod] had a tremendous impact in the hip-hop community as well when it comes to Trap music, Atlanta music and just the culture in general.”
View ABC News segment below:
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