Atlanta Rapper Young Scooter Dies at 39

The Atlanta rapper Young Scooter died on Friday, March 28, in his Georgia hometown, Variety reports. While a formal cause of death for the musician, who turned 39 years old on Friday, has not been announced, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Young Scooter died from injuries sustained while trying to flee from police officers.

During a press conference last night, an Atlanta police commander, Lt. Andrew Smith, discussed an incident involving a 39-year-old man that took place earlier in the evening. (Smith declined to identify the 39-year-old man.) According to Smith, and a statement released by the Atlanta police department, police officers arrived at a house in Atlanta in response to an apparent dispute allegedly involving gunshots. Officers tried to make contact with the people inside the residence, Smith said, and two men fled the house. The 39-year-old man jumped two fences while fleeing, according to Smith, and appeared to injury his leg. The 39-year-old man soon died at an Atlanta hospital, and, while an autopsy is pending, officers believe he succumbed to the injuries he sustained. Smith maintained that no gunshots were fired during the incident involving police, and he said officers did not cause the injuries.

Young Scooter was born Kenneth Edward Bailey in Walterboro, South Carolina. As a child, he and his family moved to Atlanta, the city where he made his name. He began his music career, in earnest, near the start of the 2010s, linking up with childhood friend Future and his Freebandz label.

As a rapper, Young Scooter was known for his blunt, straightforward vocals and lyrics, a style that Jayson Greene once called “flatly declarative.” Young Scooter was also often lumped in with the trap rappers of his era, but he preferred to call his genre “count music.” “I call it count music because all I talk about is money, and hustling and trapping and doing different street stuff,” he said. “So I call it count music ’cause everything I rap about, it’ll relate to money.”

After releasing a handful of mixtapes, Young Scooter really caught the hip-hop world’s attention with Street Lottery, released on New Year’s Day in 2013. The mixtape, hosted by DJ Swamp Izzo and DJ Scream, featured collaborations with Future, Bun B, Gucci Mane, Chief Keef, OJ da Juiceman, Mase, and others. It also included one of his first signature songs, “Colombia.”

Young Scooter continued his steady output throughout the 2010s, releasing mixtapes and making songs with Future, Gucci Mane, Lil Wayne, Migos, Waka Flocka Flame, Young Thug, Zaytoven, and many others. He released the final project of his lifetime, Streetz Krazy, in October 2023. “I feel like it’s going to be one of my classics,” Young Scooter told AllHipHop.com around his project’s release. “It’s a lot of good songs on Streetz Krazy.”