Young Dolph feuded with rivals like Soulja Boy, Blac Youngsta before he was shot to death
Young Dolph reportedly had several feuds with rival rappers from Soulja Boy to Yo Gotti and Blac Youngsta before he was shot to death. The 36-year-old rapper, whose real name is Adolph Robert Thornton Jr, was fatally shot Wednesday afternoon, November 17, at Makeda's Cookies in Memphis. "The tragic shooting death of rap artist Young Dolph serves as another reminder of the pain that violent crime brings with it," Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said.
This wasn't the first shooting Young Dolph was victimized in, after being hospitalized for two weeks after a 2017 shooting. "I’ve been targeted since I was 17, 18, 19," he later said, The Guardian reported. Meanwhile, The Sun revisited how the rap star clashed with some of his rivals in the past. Young Dolph had been on the rap scene since 2016, when he shot to prominence over his debut album 'King of Memphis'.
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Soulja Boy
The '100 shots' hitmaker reportedly got into some sort of "beef' with DeAndre Cortez Way, professionally known as Soulja Boy, earlier this month. XXL Mag reported how Dolph took to his Instagram Stories to flaunt how much money he was making. "How da f**k I'm an independent artist and gettin 100rax plus for a show. How da f**k @keyglock got more cars & ice than you & your CEO?" he wrote.
This prompted Soulja Boy to respond on Instagram, "That's big cap. They signed to @empire I'm really 100% Independent no cap." He would later slam Dolph and his team for allegedly harassing him in his DMs. "Man, Young Dolph, if you don't get your b***h a** artist out my muthaf**kin DM, ni***a," he wrote. "F**k you talkin' bout, n***a? N***a thought he was bulletproof 'til he got shot like Dolph, n***a. F**k you talkin' 'bout, n***a? Ain't you the n***a getting shot at 100 times? Ain't you the n***a getting popped and shot at all the time?" Soulja Boy added, referencing two incidents in 2017 when Dolph's car got shot at in North Carolina and Los Angeles.
Yo Gotti
Billboard reported how rapper Yo Gotti, real name Marlo Sentell Giden Mims, responded to rumors of a feud between him and Young Dolph in 2017. The 'Doin 2 Much' hitmaker opened up as he was under watch as a suspect after Dolph was shot several times. He told Charlamagne tha God, real name Lenard Larry McKelvey, that he and Dolph "never had one argument — ever in life." He added, "We never touched each other ever in life, we never exchanged no money ever in life. The fact is, I’m the biggest rapper from Memphis, I help a lot of rappers from Memphis. I don’t know, I can’t really think about what it is.”
Instead, Gotti suggested that he would assist Dolph with advice and recounted a text he sent back in 2012. "You in a good space in Memphis but you gotta take that s**t from there to the world and it’s gon’ turn into money," part of the alleged text read. "I like your grind my n***a; when I was in your position, none of them n***** as who could’ve helped me did."
Blac Youngsta
There were also reports of an ongoing feud between Young Dolph and Blac Youngsta, real name Sammie Marquez Benson. As reported by HipHopDX, Youngsta shared a video on Instagram in August 2020 where he shot a gun outside a moving car and tagged his rival Dolph. "@youngdolph F**KIN WITH MY GANG GONE GETCHO SHOOTER SHOT," he reportedly captioned the post.
Young Dolph's cousin, Mareno Myers, said the 36-year-old rapper had been in town visiting an aunt who was ill and was also giving out Thanksgiving turkeys. "He was inside (Makeda's), and somebody just rolled up on him and took his life," Myers said. The cookie shop where Dolph was shot, had posted a video on Instagram of the rapper promoting the store's cookies, saying he returns to the store whenever he is in Memphis.