Last spring, Joseph Coleman, then a baby-faced 18-year-old calling himself Lil JoJo, responded to Chief Keef’s musical provocations with his own uploaded song that included the hook “Niggas claim 300 but we BDK,” that is, Black Disciples Killers. In his “3HUNNAK,” Coleman also threatened to shoot a member of Chief Keef’s clique, and the video—which quickly captured close to a million views on YouTube—consists mostly of a throng of guys jostling into the frame, pointing an arsenal of firearms at the camera. This touched off an online war between the two rappers that lasted for weeks, and young Chicagoans followed in real time as it escalated.
On September 4, 2012, Lil JoJo drove down Black Disciples’ block, a few streets from his own. He posted video footage to his Twitter account in which he shouts profanities at someone he passes who clearly shouts back, “I’ma kill you.” That same afternoon, amid a flurry of broadside taunts fired off on social media by each side, Coleman tweeted, “lmao im on 069 Stop The Fuckin flexin.” A little while later, while riding on the back pegs of a friend’s bicycle, JoJo was shot and killed on the 6900 block of South Princeton Avenue.
Read More | "Public Enemies: Social Media Is Fueling Gang Wars in Chicago" | Ben Austen | Wired