A new ABC News Live special, “Tone Death: Loss & Hip-Hop,” documents the violence plaguing the rap community in recent years. The deaths of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. in the late ‘90s sent shockwaves through the world and marked a turning point in hip-hop and rap music. However, violence in the rap community is becoming commonplace.ABC News correspondent Mona Kosar Abdi reports on where this violence is coming from, why it is so prevalent and how the rap industry can break the cycle. The thirty-minute program features interviews with people who have felt the pain of this violence firsthand, including G. Herbo, a Chicago-raised rapper who shares his own stories and personal experience with PTSD, and Audrey Jackson and Zodiah Freedman, the mothers of slain rappers Pop Smoke and TDott Woo. Additional interviews with mental health professionals, journalists and other experts include Dr. Jaleel Abdul Adil, Ph.D., who uses hip-hop as therapy in cases of adolescent trauma; Rob Markman, music journalist; Ivie Ani, journalist and culture commentator; and LaToya Swayer, Ph.D., an expert on African American cultural rhetoric.
