The Murder Of Rapper Soulja Slim
YouTubeSoulja Slim was a New Orleans rapper who was murdered on Thanksgiving 2003.
Soulja Slim had every reason to believe his moment had finally arrived.
The New Orleans rapper, born James Tapp Jr., had weathered prison stints and business disputes to launch his own label, Cut Throat Committee, and the city had high hopes for him as an artist and CEO. After recording for No Limit Records through 2002, he had struck out on his own, building a roster of young talent and preparing to introduce his vision to the world.
On the day before Thanksgiving 2003, Slim invited his mother, Linda, upstairs to his home studio to screen an advance copy of his latest music video. “I was just so amazed,” she recalled to XXL in 2005. “He was free and it was beautiful.”
It would be one of the last times she saw her son alive.
Later that evening — Nov. 26, 2003 — the 26-year-old rapper ran an errand in his Escalade, parked it back at the two-story duplex he’d bought for his mother in the Gentilly neighborhood, and was shot multiple times as he walked toward the door. He was struck at least three times in the face and once in the chest. Witnesses reported seeing a man in dark clothing fleeing the scene.
The ensuing investigation into the Thanksgiving crime yielded few answers. A man named Garelle Smith was arrested a month later, but he was released without being charged, and Slim’s murder remains unsolved.
