Just a day after Young Dolph was shot and killed in his hometown of Memphis, the late rapper’s Paper Route Empire label and IdaMae Foundation joined forces to continue his annual Thanksgiving turkey giveaway.
DJ Rocksteddy, Paper Route Woo, Snupe Bandz, and other reps from Paper Route Empire rallied together on Friday, handing out hundreds of turkeys to needy families in Dolph’s Memphis neighborhood of Castalia.
Dolph’s annual turkey giveaway was scheduled to take place on Wednesday. However, the 36-year-old rapper was tragically gunned down that afternoon outside of Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies, a local bakery in Memphis.
As reported by Fox 13 Memphis, Billboard, TMZ, and more, the rapper was evidently making a purchase when someone drove up and fired at Dolph. After videos began to surface from the scene of the crime, police confirmed Dolph was the victim. The prolific artist was known for championing Memphis.
After releasing several mixtapes in the first half of the 2010s, Young Dolph scored his first top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with a feature on O.T. Genasis’ 2015 single “Cut It.” From there, he dropped five studio albums in a five-year span: 2016’s King of Memphis, 2017’s Bulletproof and Thinking Out Loud, 2018’s Role Model, and 2020’s Rich Slave, which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.
Dolph also collaborated with fellow Memphis rapper Key Glock on a pair of joint projects, 2019’s Dum and Dummer and 2021’s Dum and Dummer 2, which dropped in March and climbed to No. 8 on Billboard’s albums chart. Most recently, Dolph released his Paper Route Empire label’s first-ever compilation mixtape, Paper Route Illuminati, in July.
