As I shared his music I said I felt “some kind of irresponsible”. If it wasn’t clear why, now you fucking know.
Officers found Joseph Coleman, 18, unresponsive on the street with a gunshot wound, police said.
Coleman had been riding a bicycle when, according to a witness, a gunman inside of a tan or gray vehicle opened fire, striking him at least once, police said.
Coleman, of the 13000 block of South Evans Avenue, was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center and pronounced dead there, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Police were investigating whether the shooting was sparked by a gang conflict in the area, authorities said.
The videos were not the typical posturing. The coarse footage, simple editing and lack of unnecessary special effects documented a scene that was veering towards something extreme. And the music is powerful in the same vein. Full of unabridged anger and anguish intertwined with a desire and excitement somehow coupled with despair. Can you feel their passion? Do you read the naive nihilism in JoJo’s eyes?
Woven together the media fed us a neatly packaged product. A commodified youthful fury. I’m ashamed by the position I took. I was dismissive of the violence. This medium we utilize to consume the life experiences of troubled youth also exposes the vulgarity of our own appetite for meaningful distractions. And without over-playing my own over-drawn sense of self importance, ’cause the fucked up thing here is what happened to JoJo, and what is happening to his friends, not what happened to me as an observer, I still think it’s important for us not to lose sight of our participation in the calamity of this spectacle. And I apologize. And I send my condolences. RIP Lil JoJo.
