King Von, Trap Lore Ross, Drill Rap, and the Consequences of Connecting the Dots
By JM Talboo
There is a tendency in discussions about King Von, Lil Durk, drill rap and the violence surrounding Chicago to reduce an extraordinarily complicated story to a handful of simple characters: the killer, the gang member, the victim, the rapper, the monster.
I don't think reality is that simple.
That doesn't mean I think King Von was a good guy. I don't think that question can honestly be answered in black and white. He was associated with terrible violence, and there are serious allegations surrounding his life. But there are also accounts of him helping people, giving money to people from his old neighborhood, supporting charitable efforts, putting money on the books of incarcerated people and showing compassion toward people who were vulnerable.
A person can do terrible things and still possess genuine compassion.
That isn't an excuse.
It's an observation about human beings.
And I think that distinction gets lost when people try to turn complicated human beings into fictional archetypes.
Was King Von Really a Serial Killer?
This is where Trap Lore Ross's characterization of King Von deserves serious scrutiny.
Ross's documentary King Von: Rap's First Serial Killer argued that Von could be classified as a serial killer. The documentary connected Von to numerous killings and attempted to demonstrate that his behavior satisfied characteristics Ross associated with serial killers. The original documentary ran for roughly four hours and connected Von to ten murders, many of which were disputed or speculative.
But there is an important distinction that gets lost in the sensationalism.
Someone can be responsible for multiple murders without that automatically answering the separate question of whether “serial killer” is the appropriate classification.
That is the central issue.
Point & Shoot's King Von Was Not A Serial Killer directly challenges Ross's argument, including his use of an FBI description of serial killing.
Another video supplied for this article, Is King Von a Serial Killer? (You're probably wrong), approaches the same question from a similarly skeptical direction.
And there is an important conceptual reason to have this debate.
Gang-related killings can involve retaliation, territorial disputes, revenge, loyalty, perceived obligations and ongoing conflicts between groups.
Those motives can be horrific.
They can produce multiple murders.
They can destroy families.
But they are not automatically identical to the psychological phenomenon people ordinarily mean when they hear “serial killer.”
That distinction matters.
The Get Back Gang
One detail that I think gets overlooked is the name itself.
Get Back Gang.
That name strongly suggests retaliation.
Again, retaliation doesn't excuse murder.
But it tells us something about the environment and the alleged motivation being discussed.
If someone kills somebody because they believe that person killed one of their friends, that is still a killing. It can still be murder. It can still devastate families and communities.
But the motive is fundamentally relevant to understanding what happened.
A person participating in a cycle of gang retaliation isn't necessarily operating according to the same motivations as someone randomly selecting victims because the act of killing itself provides psychological gratification.
The difference is important enough that I don't think it should be waved away simply because somebody has accumulated multiple alleged killings.
The Problem With Treating Lyrics as Confessions
This brings us to another enormous problem.
What do we do with rap lyrics?
King Von's most famous songs are a useful example.
“Crazy Story,” including its sequels, is storytelling.
“Took Her to the O” is storytelling.
The events depicted in those songs don't literally correspond to what happened in the real world.
That doesn't mean Von never incorporated real experiences into his music. Obviously he did.
But a song isn't a sworn deposition.
Rap has always mixed autobiography, exaggeration, fictional storytelling, persona and reality.
That's part of the art form.
The strange assumption that a rapper must literally be everything he describes is a standard we don't generally apply to other forms of entertainment.
Nobody watches Goodfellas and assumes Martin Scorsese committed organized crime.
Nobody reads a crime novel and demands proof that the author committed the murders.
Nobody assumes an actor playing a murderer is secretly a murderer.
Yet rappers are routinely treated as though fiction ceases to exist the moment the medium is hip-hop.
That doesn't mean lyrics can never be evidence.
They can.
If a lyric contains information that is independently corroborated by material evidence, witnesses, communications or other reliable evidence, it may become relevant.
But the lyric itself shouldn't automatically be treated as proof of the underlying event.
That distinction becomes especially important when the entire argument is built around proving that an artist's artistic persona demonstrates a particular psychological condition.
The Methodology Cuts Both Ways
This is one of the more interesting arguments raised in the Drill Time TV material supplied for this article.
Ross has repeatedly used rappers' lyrics as evidence of real-world criminal conduct.
But what happens if that methodology is applied consistently?
If a rapper says in a song that he sells heroin and cocaine, do we simply assume he sells heroin and cocaine?
Of course not.
He could be lying.
He could be exaggerating.
He could be playing a character.
He could be telling a story.
He could be incorporating something he witnessed into a fictional narrative.
That doesn't mean every rapper is innocent of everything they describe.
It means the methodology has to work both ways.
And that's why the hypothetical is useful:
What if Trap Lore Ross had become a successful rapper instead of a YouTuber?
Imagine someone taking his lyrics, treating them as literal autobiographical evidence, building a documentary around them and announcing that Ross was therefore a drug dealer or criminal.
Would that prove it?
Obviously not.
And that doesn't mean Ross should be arrested.
I assume he would simply say that his lyrics were lyrics.
That's the point.
The same standard should apply to everybody.
A Serial Killer With a King Von Tattoo?
There is another contradiction raised by the criticism of Ross that I find difficult to ignore.
Ross has described himself as a fan of King Von.
He has also argued that Von was a serial killer.
And he has a King Von tattoo.
That combination understandably strikes some people as strange.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with appreciating an artist whose behavior you condemn. People listen to music made by deeply flawed people all the time.
But Ross's argument goes considerably further than saying Von was a flawed person who committed terrible acts.
He is arguing for a particular psychological classification.
If I genuinely believed someone was a sadistic serial killer in the conventional sense, I don't think I would describe myself as a fan of that person and wear their face as a tattoo.
That contradiction is worth discussing.
It doesn't prove Ross has an agenda.
It doesn't prove he's lying.
But it raises a legitimate question about exactly what he means when he says he is a fan.
Did Ross Change?
This is where the Why I HATE Trap Lore Ross video becomes useful for a different reason.
The video doesn't merely attack Ross's conclusions about King Von.
It examines the apparent evolution of his content.
The creator points to Ross's earlier work about artists such as Frank Ocean, 50 Cent, Lil Yachty, Drake, Jay-Z and Soulja Boy, describing it as lighter, music-focused material. The argument is that Ross later moved increasingly toward gang violence, murder and death. The video specifically points to the enormous popularity of Ross's gang-related content and asks whether the true-crime boom created an incentive to pursue that material.
That's an interesting question.
It isn't proof of motive.
We cannot look at a change in someone's content and conclusively announce why they made that change.
But timing matters.
If a creator discovers that a particular genre of content generates vastly more attention, it is reasonable to ask whether the economics of the platform influenced the direction of the channel.
And the timing of Ross's King Von documentary is particularly interesting because true crime was already an enormous entertainment category.
The combination was almost tailor-made for the algorithm:
a hugely popular rapper + murder + gang violence + true crime + a sensational psychological label.
That doesn't prove the thesis was manufactured.
But it certainly helps explain why the thesis was commercially powerful.
And There Is a Broader Ecosystem of Criticism
This is also why I don't want to present this article as though there is only one person on the internet who disagrees with Ross.
There are multiple criticisms coming from different directions.
Point & Shoot directly challenges the serial-killer argument.
The other King Von analysis examines the classification itself.
Drill Time TV attacks the methodology of treating lyrics as evidence.
The Why I HATE Trap Lore Ross video examines the evolution of Ross's content and the role of sensationalism.
These aren't identical arguments.
That's important.
Some may be stronger than others.
Some contain rhetoric I wouldn't use myself.
But collectively they demonstrate that Ross's characterization of King Von is not some uncontested fact that everyone simply accepts.
And that matters because controversial claims should be examined, not merely repeated.
King Von Was More Complicated Than a Monster
I want to be equally careful here not to swing from one caricature to another.
I'm not arguing that King Von was secretly a saint.
I don't believe that.
There are accounts of violence and allegations against him that are extremely serious.
But there are also accounts that complicate the picture.
A peace activist who worked with him reportedly described him as having a good heart and said the person she saw wasn't the same person presented through his music.
There are accounts of charitable activity.
There are stories of him giving substantial amounts of money to people he grew up with.
There are accounts that he put money on the books of incarcerated people.
There is the story associated with his “Grandson” nickname involving his treatment of an incarcerated man in a wheelchair.
And there is something else that caught my attention in Ross's own documentary.
Ross reportedly presents evidence suggesting that Von was responsible for another death beyond the number represented by the skulls in Von's tattoo.
But Von apparently did not include that death among the killings he celebrated or claimed.
The reason matters: it was allegedly accidental.
If that's accurate, it complicates the idea that Von was simply collecting bodies as trophies.
An accidental death can still be horrific.
But feeling differently about an unintended death than an intentional killing tells us something about psychology.
A person who is indifferent to killing and a person who feels remorse over an accidental death are not necessarily exhibiting the same psychological profile.
Again, none of this excuses anything.
It is simply another reason not to flatten the person into one sensational label.
Environment Matters
This is where my earlier work on drill rap becomes relevant.
I've argued before that drill rap should be understood partly as a reflection of the environment that produced it.
That doesn't mean music has no influence.
Of course it can.
There are people who hear violent music and want to imitate it.
But they're a minority.
Most people can listen to aggressive music without becoming violent.
I can listen to extremely aggressive drill music while working out and hear nothing more complicated than energy, aggression and fast beats.
I don't have to become what I'm hearing.
The distinction is between influence and inevitability.
A culture can influence people without determining their behavior.
A violent environment can increase the likelihood of violence without making violence inevitable.
And a person can be profoundly shaped by their surroundings while remaining responsible for what they ultimately choose to do.
That's the argument behind my earlier piece:
“The Impact of Drill Rap on Society: A Reflection of Systemic Failures.”
The bigger question isn't simply:
Why are these rappers violent?
It's:
What kind of environment produces a generation of young people for whom retaliation can become a rational response to violence?
That question requires looking beyond the rappers.
It means looking at poverty, segregation, firearms, failed institutions, trauma, gang structures, family circumstances and the availability—or absence—of legitimate alternatives.
And it means looking at things such as the reported crates of guns that have become part of the broader discussion.
I haven't yet organized that material into a comprehensive investigation.
I don't want to pretend I have.
But I think people should investigate it for themselves.
Go to YouTube and type:
crates of guns
Follow the material.
Check the dates.
Check the locations.
Look for competing explanations.
I am not saying that a YouTube search proves some grand conspiracy.
It doesn't.
I'm saying it is a rabbit hole worth investigating if we're going to seriously discuss the environment in which this violence developed.
I'll organize that material more thoroughly myself later.
The Retaliation Cycle
The name Get Back Gang is relevant because retaliation appears repeatedly throughout this story.
And retaliation doesn't begin with King Von.
It doesn't end with him either.
The violence surrounding these people exists within a cycle.
Someone loses a friend.
Someone seeks revenge.
Someone else loses a friend.
Another person seeks revenge.
And eventually the consequences reach people who weren't even present at the beginning.
That is how a cycle becomes self-sustaining.
This is also why I think it's important to distinguish explanation from excuse.
Understanding why somebody did something doesn't mean saying they were justified.
If someone murders a rival because that rival killed their friend, I can understand the motive without approving of the murder.
If somebody grows up surrounded by violence, I can understand how that environment affected them without saying they had no choice.
The two things can coexist.
The Night Everything Changed
That principle is particularly important when looking at King Von's death.
Von chose to approach Quando Rondo.
A physical confrontation followed.
Lil Tim fired.
I personally consider the shooting murder.
That is my moral assessment, not a statement about what a court ultimately determined.
Lil Tim was originally charged, but the case was dismissed without a trial. He was not acquitted.
Whatever one thinks about the legal case, I personally find the use of lethal force in response to a fistfight extraordinarily excessive.
And here's the part that I think deserves more attention:
Every person involved had a choice.
Von could have chosen not to have the confrontation.
Lil Tim could have chosen not to fire.
Either choice could have changed the future.
If Von doesn't die that night, Lul Pab may still be alive.
Lil Durk may never have ended up facing the circumstances he faces today.
Durk's music might have developed differently.
Von might have eventually left the streets.
Maybe he would have followed Durk toward something more positive.
Maybe none of that would have happened.
We can't know.
But that's precisely the tragedy.
Those possible futures disappeared.
What Happened to Lil Durk's Music?
This is another area where I think the counterfactual deserves consideration.
Durk had always made drill and street-oriented music. It would be inaccurate to portray him as simply a singer before Von's death.
But there is nevertheless a noticeable contrast between different periods of his career.
After Von's death, the retaliatory and angry material became much more prominent.
And later, Durk produced music such as “All My Life,” which represents a dramatically different direction: aspiration, reflection and a desire to escape the cycle.
I can't prove that Von's death caused every subsequent change in Durk's music.
Nor can I know what Durk would have done if Von had lived.
But it is reasonable to consider the possibility.
Perhaps Durk eventually would have gone in that direction anyway.
Perhaps Von would have followed him.
Perhaps both would have.
Perhaps neither would have.
The point isn't to pretend we know the alternate history.
The point is that the alternate history existed.
Then one night, it didn't.
One Choice Can Change Dozens of Lives
This is what I think gets lost when we reduce violent crime to questions of whether individual people are simply “bad.”
People talk about environment and personal responsibility as though they're mutually exclusive.
They're not.
Environment can influence the choices people see as available.
It can normalize retaliation.
It can establish expectations.
It can create cycles.
But individuals still make decisions within those environments.
And those decisions affect everyone downstream.
One person makes a choice.
Someone else responds.
A third person retaliates.
Someone else loses a friend.
Another person decides that friend must be avenged.
Eventually someone who wasn't even present at the original conflict ends up dead or imprisoned.
That is the chain.
And it doesn't excuse anyone.
It demonstrates why individual responsibility and systemic analysis have to exist simultaneously.
Art or Evidence?
This is the larger argument behind my earlier article, “Art or Evidence? The Complex Case of Lil Durk and the Fight to Protect Artistic Freedom.”
The question isn't whether lyrics can ever be evidence.
They can.
The question is whether we are going to treat artistic expression differently depending on who made it.
If a novelist writes about murder, we don't assume the novelist is a murderer.
If a filmmaker creates a gangster movie, we don't assume the filmmaker is a gangster.
If a rapper writes a violent story, we shouldn't automatically assume the story is an admission.
And yet rappers increasingly find their lyrics examined in court as though every line were a confession.
That's particularly troubling when the lyrics are being interpreted without sufficient context.
A lyric that describes a real event can be significant.
A lyric that independently predicts or corroborates an event can be significant.
But a lyric that merely resembles an allegation is not automatically proof of the allegation.
Art can contain evidence. Art is not automatically evidence.
That distinction should be obvious.
The Bigger Picture
This brings me to the part of the story that interests me most.
Individual facts are constantly reported.
King Von was killed.
Durk was angry.
Retaliation was discussed.
Lul Pab was killed.
People were arrested.
Lyrics were introduced.
Guns appeared.
Gang conflicts continued.
Videos were released.
But the dots are rarely connected.
The news reports the individual events.
Then another news story reports the next event.
Then another.
The audience is left to decide whether the events form a larger pattern.
I think “connecting the dots” has become unfairly associated with the stereotype of the conspiracy theorist standing in front of a wall covered in red string.
But connecting evidence is also what investigators do.
The fact that some people connect dots that aren't actually connected doesn't mean nobody should connect dots.
The correct response isn't:
Never connect dots.
It's:
Make sure the dots actually connect.
That's the standard I try to apply to my own work.
If a connection doesn't hold up, throw it away.
If new evidence contradicts a theory, change the theory.
If something remains unresolved, say that it remains unresolved.
And if apparently unrelated pieces of evidence begin converging on the same larger explanation, don't pretend the convergence doesn't exist simply because the conclusion is uncomfortable.
And Then There Are the Guns
This is why I think the crates-of-guns issue deserves attention even though I haven't yet put all of that research together.
It doesn't prove that any individual person committed a particular crime.
It doesn't excuse anybody.
And finding a crate of guns doesn't force somebody to shoot anybody.
If I found a crate of guns, I wouldn't suddenly be compelled to go kill people.
That's personal responsibility.
But circumstances still matter.
Access to weapons matters.
The availability of weapons matters.
The environment in which people are growing up matters.
The larger supply chain matters.
And systemic failures matter.
If we want to understand why violence occurs, we can't simply look at the final trigger pull and declare the rest of the environment irrelevant.
The individual decision remains the individual's responsibility.
But the larger circumstances deserve investigation.
What Are We Actually Trying to Prove?
This is ultimately the question I think should guide the entire discussion.
Are we trying to prove that King Von was a good person?
No.
Are we trying to prove that he never committed violence?
No.
Are we trying to excuse gang violence?
Absolutely not.
Are we trying to prove that every criticism of Trap Lore Ross is correct?
No.
We're trying to determine what the evidence actually establishes.
That's different.
Maybe some of Ross's allegations are correct.
Maybe some aren't.
Maybe some of the murders he associated with Von will eventually be established beyond reasonable doubt.
Maybe some never will.
Maybe some of Von's lyrics were autobiographical.
Maybe others were fictional.
Maybe they were mixtures of both.
That's why evidence matters.
And that's why sensational labels can be dangerous.
Once somebody is called a “serial killer,” the label begins doing the argumentative work for the evidence.
Instead of asking:
What happened?
People start asking:
What kind of monster does this?
Those aren't the same question.
Conclusion: People Are More Complicated Than Their Worst Moments
I don't think King Von was simply a good guy.
I don't think he was simply a monster.
I don't think every violent lyric was a confession.
I don't think every allegation should be dismissed.
I don't think Trap Lore Ross is automatically wrong because he criticized Von.
And I don't think every person criticizing Ross is automatically right.
What I think is that the story deserves more nuance than the sensational labels usually provide.
King Von's life existed at the intersection of individual choice and systemic failure.
His music existed at the intersection of autobiography and fiction.
His alleged violence existed within a culture of retaliation.
His death became part of another retaliatory cycle.
That cycle eventually reached Lil Durk and Lul Pab.
And the consequences continue.
The tragedy is that none of it was necessarily inevitable.
People had choices.
Von had choices.
Lil Tim had choices.
Durk had choices.
Everyone caught up in the cycle had choices.
But choices don't happen in a vacuum.
The environment influences the choices people make.
The choices influence what happens next.
And sometimes one choice changes the lives of dozens of people who never even had a seat at the table when the original decision was made.
That's what I think gets lost when we reduce this entire story to a four-hour documentary, a sensational title, or a single word like “serial killer.”
The real story is much harder.
It's about violence, retaliation, art, environment, systemic failure, personal responsibility, incentives, evidence and the enormous consequences of seemingly small decisions.
And if we actually want to prevent the next tragedy, that's the story we need to understand.
Sources
YouTube Videos
King Von Was Not A Serial Killer
https://youtu.be/ShxGU3MIxcY?is=5WdZ-Sc7C3lw70GB
Is King Von a Serial Killer? (You’re probably wrong)
https://youtu.be/aWsGaJRt0Ac?is=f47OkJ0mNziaKdXT
Why I HATE Trap Lore Ross
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY9xWmsPcGo
Trap Ross Is Scared To Death After Getting Exposed By The FED⁹S...
https://youtu.be/8_uhPwZDf4U?is=TMYpY8PrzA0ZLMfb
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