Hip-hop pioneer Kidd Creole was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in state prison for the 2017 stabbing death of a homeless man on a midtown Manhattan street, prosecutors said.
The 62-year-old rapper, whose real name is Nathaniel Glover, was found guilty of manslaughter last month in the death of John Jolly, who was stabbed twice in the chest with a steak knife on East 43rd Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues.
Glover, a founding member of Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, also faces five years post-release supervision as part of the sentence handed down Wednesday.
Prosecutors had said the Bronx man, a founding member of Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, walked past Jolly on the street and stabbed him because he thought he was gay and hitting on him, which enraged him.
Minutes after the attack, a group of tourists discovered Jolly in the street. He was taken to a hospital, where he died of his wounds.
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Glover had left the scene and fled two blocks away to his place of work, according to court documents. There, he changed his clothing and cleaned the knife in an office sink. After about 15 minutes, he left, boarded the subway, and disposed of the knife in a sewer near a Bronx subway station, prosecutors say. The following day, NYPD officers recovered the knife and arrested Glover at his home in the Bronx.
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Glover's attorney had argued the killing was done in self-defense.
Prosecutors, and ultimately a Manhattan jury, disagreed.
"Mr. Jolly’s death was devastating to his family and those who knew him," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement Wednesday. "Every life we lose to violent crime ripples throughout our entire city, and we will continue to ensure everyone in our borough can live their lives with the sense of safety and security they deserve."
Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five formed in the late 1970s in the Bronx. The group's most well-known song is “The Message” from 1982. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, the first rap group to be included.
