Lil Snupe was laid to rest on Saturday, a funeral so overflowing that people showed up three hours early to mourn the teenage rapper.
The funeral brought hundreds of people to the Jonesboro-Hodge High School auditorium, so many in fact that the rapper’s family had to move the funeral from 11 am to 1 pm.
Lil Snupe, born Adderran Ross, was gunned down June 20 in Winnfield, Louisiana. Reports said he was shot after a dispute over a video game turned violent. Police named 36-year-old Tony D. Holden as a suspect, and he was captured by police.
The Winnfield City Police Department said they received calls about gunshots at the Maplewood Apartments just after 4 am, and when they arrived found Lil Snupe with two gunshot wounds to his chest . He was declared dead at the scene.
Shortly after his death, Lil Snupe was mourned as an up-and-coming rapper who was making the most of his big break. Snupe burst onto the rap scene after a chance meeting with rapper Meek MIll during a tour stop at Grambling State University. Lil Snupe passed along a demo tape as Meek Mill was leaving.
“He was in a van, they was finna pull off. And I went and knocked on the van, on the window. They let the window down, grabbed the mixtape and it was like 10 minutes later, 20 minutes later they called me,” Snupe told MTV News back in February.
Meek turned around to get back to Lil Snupe, and the 17-year-old was signed to the MMG rapper’s label within the hour.
“He was spittin’ so much pain, he’s from the south with a flow like an east coast guy,” Meek said. “Like with that bounce flow, all over the place, he really can spit, and he was talking that talk that I can really relate to. I seen potential in him.”
Mourners showed up to Snupe’s funeral three hours before it was to begin, while Meek Mill sat with dark sunglasses for the majority of the service.
“I’m never one to talk (at funerals),” Mill said of his protege Lil Snupe. “I saw something in him. His demo tape spoke to me. I saw myself in him.”