THE KILLING OF SCOTT LA ROCK: WHY HASN’T HIP HOP’S BIGGEST MURDER MYSTERY BEEN SOLVED?
Scott “La Rock” Sterling’s day job was social work, but he moonlighted as a club DJ. With a popular reputation, he needed a rapper to complement his skills. By accident, he met Lawrence “Krisna” Parker, a graffiti artist who was staying at the Bronx shelter where he worked, and the pair formed a group called Scott La Rock and the Celebrity Three. Later, Sterling and Parker (also known as KRS-One), along with Derrick “D-Nice” Jones, formed Boogie Down Productions and released a 1987 debut LP called Criminal Minded. With hits like “South Bronx” and the title track, the trio soon caught the eye of Jive Records execs who signed them to their label. But the success was short-lived. On Aug. 27, 1987, as he attempted to squash a fight between Jones and an enemy, Sterling was mortally wounded in a Jeep outside the Bronx’s Highbridge projects and died hours later. The next year, Cory Bayne and Kendall Newland were arrested for the crime, but as the case had no willing witnesses to testify, they were acquitted. What people didn’t know about this murder was that it was way deeper than it seemed. They got involved with BBoy records which was organized by hardened gangsters who were into everything from drug dealing to “Jeffery Epstein” like honeycomb blackmail schemes. At the time of Scott La Rock’s murder Boogie Down Productions had major deals on the table from Warner Brothers and Jive Records. The Warner deal offered them full ownership of their publishing. Was it this deal the reason Scott La Rock was really killed? It remains one of hip hop’s most mysterious murders and has yet to be solved.
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