“I was born to shoot.” A lyric from King Von’s popular song, “Crazy Story.” Produced by Mac Fly, “Crazy Story” is a storytelling rap song that illustrates the daily experiences of what goes on in the life of King Von and possibly others in his community. According to the artist’s explanation of the song on Genius, the song tells the story of King Von using a young woman to “lure a rich man in,” so he can rob him and later on shoot a man who arrived with the man that he set up to rob.
While King Von explains the lyric “I was born to shoot” as a reference to avoiding being “caught lacking,” the lyric reflects a deeper reality, underscoring the systematic issues of exposure to violence and crime in marginalized communities and how King Von, others from O-Block, and Black youth across America are simply “born to shoot.”
According to the Chicago Sun-Times (November 2, 2014), Parkway Garden Apartment Homes, commonly known as O-Block, is located in the Greater Grand Crossing area of Chicago, IL on the 6400 block of South Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Having former residents such as First Lady Michelle Obama, and artists Lil Durk, King Von, and Chief Keef makes O-Block no stranger to breeding legends. Still despite its notable natives, O-Block is a neighborhood ridden with gun violence, drug harboring, and gang factions. Like many other predominantly Black American communities, O-Block was nearly produced to fail its inhabitants. This predicament can be credited to the Great Migration.
The Great Migration was a period in which approximately six million African Americans moved from the Southern states to the Northern and Western regions of the U.S. from 1910 to 1970 to escape the Jim Crow South, leading to approximately 60,000 new Black residents to Chicago between the years of 1940 to 1944. As a result of this, white Chicago citizens set in place “restrictive covenants,” legally binding contracts prohibiting white property owners from selling or renting to Black people. These covenants are what prompted the “Black Belt,” a confining area in which Black Chicagoans were forced to reside. The Black Belt’s neighborhoods had apartments with extremely tiny “kitchenette” units, thin flammable walls, and an infestation of rats that would reportedly attack sleeping children. These units were nearly unlivable and later recognized as unconstitutional but while racist housing practices were outlawed in 1968, neighborhoods in the Black Belt area, such as what is now known as O-Block, already felt the effects of this system leading to generational poverty and eventually, crime. In fact, it was gun violence that led to O-Block getting its infamous name, as the O in O-Block is named after Odee Perry, a 20-year-old who was shot and killed in 2011, whose death is rumored to be a result of a retaliation of from the gang, Gangster Disciples, which is now known to be a rival of Black Disciples, the gang which Perry was a member of. Even King Von himself has a connection to this rivalry violence as his father has a close relationship with the founder of Gangster Disciples or GD. The violence surrounding Odee Perry and others affiliated with the situation shows that Von’s lyric “I was born to shoot,” serves as a poignant reflection of how, for those growing up in areas like O-Block, violence is not always a personal choice but rather a product of the environment they were born into. For King Von and many of his peers, the decision to “shoot” is not a matter of choice but rather an ingrained reaction due to years of exposure to this lifestyle of violence. In neighborhoods like O-Block, where gun violence is a daily reality, young people are often forced to adopt a mindset of aggression in order to survive. According to Hip-Hop Daily, K.I., the young woman rumored to have killed Odee Perry, was known for “shooting anyone she had a problem with.” A child cannot adopt a lifestyle as such on their own. Aside from being in the midst of it, physically living in an unsafe environment, violence has a way of psychologically affecting a child’s mind and without having proper resources to deal with these traumas, the effects can worsen.
The systemic exposure to violence in areas like O-Block does not stop at the physical level; it deeply impacts the mental health of children growing up in such environments. Dr. Stanley J. Huey, a professor of Psychology at the University of Southern California researched on this very issue, diving deeply into the topic in the literature review When Helping Hurts? Toward a Nuanced Interpretation of Adverse Effects in Gang-Focused Interventions. The piece touches on three important points in regards to youth and gang affiliations. First, being that gangs members and involvement hinder the youth’s progress by consuming his or her social activities, limiting the child’s access to productive social activities. Second, the image that a child may cultivate to fit into said surroundings (appearance, demeanor, etc.) may hinder their ability to adapt to and/or be embraced in different environments. Lastly, gang affiliation can lead to lack of academic participation, achievement, and even completion. With all this being said, more often than not, this life is inescapable. In place of healthy social activities like recreational sports and clubs, children are involved in such violence because of lack of resources, to help financially support families, or lack of other viable alternatives for their future. University of Chicago Professor, Dexter Voisin has been studying the emotional and psychological impacts of community violence on youth for over 25 years, saying that the impact on youth subjected and exposed to community violence leads to “all the psychological dysregulation that you would anticipate.” This constant exposure to community violence not only normalizes it but also perpetuates a cycle where survival in this environment becomes a priority, leaving little room for other hobbies, aspirations, or pathways to escape.
King Von’s lyric “I was born to shoot” serves as a stark reminder of the harsh reality for youth growing up in neighborhoods like O-Block. Yet, this is not just King Von’s story. It is the story of countless marginalized youth across America who are born into circumstances they did not choose. Breaking this cycle requires more than acknowledgment, it demands systemic change. This systemic change will not happen overnight. Activist Angela Y. Davis highlights the need for dismantling systemic structures in her lecture turned novel Freedom is a Constant Struggle saying “No amount of psychological therapy or group training can effectively address racism in this country, unless we also begin to dismantle the structures of racism.”(Davis 107) This underscores that addressing gang violence requires dismantling the root causes: systemic racism and inequality. Until this collective effort is recognized, we will continue to have many stories, crazy stories, that serve as the cries from Black youth who believe that their existence boils down to being “born to shoot.”