Young Pappy

Shaquon Jerome Thomas (May 10, 1995 - May 29, 2015), better known by his stage name Young Pappy was an African American drill rapper from the northside of Chicago, Illinois. Pappy released his first official mixtape, "2 Cups part 1" on August 21, 2014, his second mixtape "2 Cups Part 2 of Everything" was released May 9, 2015, followed by his third mixtape "2 Cups Part 3" which was released on July 6, 2016.

Music career
Young Pappy started rapping when he was 4 years old, his older brother Ryan Thomas (who is also a popular rapper) taught him how to rap. Most of Young Pappys music can be found on YouTube and Spinrilla including a video uploaded on YouTube in 2007 of him freestyling when he was only 12 years old. His most popular song "Killa" has over 19 million views on YouTube, his other most popular songs have 5-10 million views. Young Pappys first official mixtape "2 Cups part 1" was released on August 21, 2014, it has over 350.000 views on the popular music streaming app Spinrilla and was hosted by DJ Louie V. Young Pappys second mixtape "2 Cups Part 2 of Everything" was released May 9, 2015. It has over 1.7 million views and 1.2 million streams making it his most popular mixtape. 2 Cups Part 2 Of Everything was hosted by DJ Legacy. Before his death he was also working on his third mixtape "2cups part 3". Unfortunately, he died before he was able to finish it, it still got released but it has his old songs on it instead of new ones. It has over 1.6 million views.

Personal life
Born Shaquon Jerome Thomas, Young Pappy was raised by his Mother and Father in Chicago with his 2 brothers Tayvion Thomas and Ryan Thomas. He started rapping when he was 4 years old with his older brother Ryan teaching him how to. Some of his favorite rappers he listened to when he was younger were Nas, DMX and Kanye West. He attended Sullivan High School with many of his friends. His mother Ingrid Thomas claims that Pappys problems began in eighth grade when he was caught with weed at school and that things just got worse from there eventually leading to Pappy entering the juvenile justice system. Pappy was often in trouble with the police and got arrested for the first time when he was 13 years old. At the age of 14 Pappy started taking his rap career seriously and began recording songs with his friends, many of the songs he recorded can be found on YouTube. The first mixtape he made was called "The Protégé Vol 1" but he never released it. Pappy got involved in gang activity during his early teens, he claimed the Gangster Disciple set "Insane Cutthroat Gangsters" which was later renamed to "Pooh Bear Gang" also known as "PBG" after the death of one of its members Anton "Pooh Bear" Sanders who was also one of Pappys friends. It is believed that the person who killed Anton was a member of rival gang "Loc City" by the name of Glenford "Munchie" Johnson. Munchie was shot dead on September 11, 2014 and many people say Young Pappy was the person who killed him, in some of Pappys songs you can hear him dissing Munchie and making fun of his death. Young Pappys music began getting very popular in 2014 with many of his Songs on YouTube getting thousands of views everyday. By the start of 2015 Pappy was already a local celebrity and was the most popular rapper on the northside of Chicago with radio stations interviewing him and people from Record Labels trying to sign him but Pappy turned their offers down. Just before his death, famous rapper Montana of 300 heard about Pappy and was going to attempt to sign him to FGE but before he got the chance to contact him Young Pappy was killed. Since his death Pappy has continued to get even more popular than he was when he was alive with nearly every song he has made getting over 1 million views on YouTube.

Death
On May 29, 2015, Shaquon Thomas was standing on the 4800 block of North Kenmore Avenue when he got shot in the back twice around 1:35am and was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at 2:04am. He was 20 years old. The person who killed him was never found, it is believed that the shooting was gang related and that it was a member of a rival gang that killed him. Pappy had also been shot once in 2014 outside of a McDonalds with one of the bullets shot at him hitting his arm and another one killing his friend Markeyo Carr.