The mother of a slain Chicago teen is calling out rappers who continue to reference her son.
In 2011, 15-year-old Shondale “Tooka” Gregory was fatally shot while waiting at a Chicago bus stop. The teen was a suspected member of the Gangster Disciples—a rival street gang to Chief Keef’s alleged faction, the Black Disciples. Though authorities have never confirmed an exact motive, it’s believed that the attack on Tooka was retaliation over the murder of a BD associate. Since then, a number of rappers have continued to name-drop Tooka in their music, seemingly mocking his death with phrases like, “smoking Tooka.”
“My son had nothing to do with nothing in this rap industry. He didn’t even know how to beatbox, let alone bust a lyric for a rap,” Tooka’s mother, Dominique Boyd, told Say Cheese. “For him to be disrespected and [mocked for] his death? They’re the ones—my son was not about that lifestyle. They’re the ones who are making him famous and blowing him up like this, ’cause they can’t stop saying his fuckin’ name … You don’t even know my son.”
Keef first used “Tooka” in tracks like “3Hunna” and “John Madden.” Artists like Lil Durk and King Von would follow suit, before other non-Chicago MCs began using the name on their own cuts, as many believed “Tooka” was slang for marijuana.
“I just wanna know why. Why? That’s all I have to ask them,” Boyd continued. “What has my son done to y’all to make y’all disrespect him like this? Every song they make has got, ‘We smokin’ on Tooka. Fuck Tooka this, fuck Tooka that. You know how long my son has been gone? Since 2011. This is 2022 and he’s still a trending topic … I don’t want this lifestyle. He didn’t want this lifestyle. He can’t be here and be his voice, so I’m gonna do it for him.”
Boyd called on rappers to stop with all the disrespect, “not only for my son, but for all the dead people.”
“How could you kill somebody … and mock that?” she asked. “What’s funny about that?”
You can hear Boyd’s full comments in the videos above and below.
