![]() Wipeout died instantly of multiple gunshot wounds. A bystander, 36-year-old Anthony Roberson, of Detroit, recognized the record producer/exec and sometimes rapper and went to greet him. 18, when, according to police, he was standing in front of the Candy Bar nightclub on Woodward and John R in downtown Detroit. Wipeout was gunned down on the morning of Sept. Two pages of ads promote past and upcoming rap albums.Ī list of Wipeout’s past and present nicknames are typeset to look like subtitles of must-read articles: ![]() So are previews of albums due to be released on the label. The Please Believe It logo is included on the cover. Some leaf through Wipeout’s funeral program, which is designed in the style of a gaudy hip-hop fanzine. There is a round of applause, and everyone settles down. Bishop Samuel Wilson beckons everyone to return to their seats out of courtesy to Wipeout’s family. One by one, young men rise and head for the front door. Others move to catch him, and the man tearfully shouts, “Stop touching me!” He storms out of the sanctuary, sending waves of alarm through the pews. Then a young man walking down the aisle after viewing the body staggers, dips, seeming to nearly faint. There is a cloud of pain hovering over his death that feels dense enough to touch. The saddened friends and associates often shout, “Oh, Boy!” That was the mantra of Please Believe It, the company 32-year-old Wipeout (whose real name was Antonio Caddell Jr.) was working to establish as a force in Detroit’s hip-hop industry and to take to national success. They crowd Wipeout’s gray metal casket, which is surrounded by floral arrangements that reflect his life: a floral Hummer, a floral record as well as more traditional funerary arrangements, including one with his photograph as an inset. Inside, mourners cry, often screaming through their tears. They sit on wheels that hug sets of polished chrome rims. Among the civilian cars are a number of foreign luxury vehicles and custom-painted SUVs, which gleam in the bright sunshine. ![]() Outside, there are at least four marked police cars stationed at corners near the church. Two Detroit police officers are in the church vestibule, one in a department-issue jumpsuit, one in cop shorts their sidearms seem wildly incongruous here. Tension ripples through the house of worship. Many of the mourners are dressed casually, in jeans, jerseys and white T-shirts, some of which bear Wipeout’s image. On a sun-drenched mid-September morning, hundreds of friends and relatives of the slain, would-be rap mogul known as Wipeout fill the pews of the Community Christian Fellowship Church on Detroit’s East Side. ![]()
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