There is a cloud of pain hovering over his death that feels dense enough to touch. The saddened friends and associates often shout, “Oh, Boy!” That was the mantra of Please Believe It, the company 32-year-old Wipeout (whose real name was Antonio Caddell Jr.) was working to establish as a force in Detroit’s hip-hop industry and to take to national success. They crowd Wipeout’s gray metal casket, which is surrounded by floral arrangements that reflect his life: a floral Hummer, a floral record as well as more traditional funerary arrangements, including one with his photograph as an inset. Inside, mourners cry, often screaming through their tears. They sit on wheels that hug sets of polished chrome rims. Among the civilian cars are a number of foreign luxury vehicles and custom-painted SUVs, which gleam in the bright sunshine. Outside, there are at least four marked police cars stationed at corners near the church. Two Detroit police officers are in the church vestibule, one in a department-issue jumpsuit, one in cop shorts their sidearms seem wildly incongruous here. Tension ripples through the house of worship. Many of the mourners are dressed casually, in jeans, jerseys and white T-shirts, some of which bear Wipeout’s image. On a sun-drenched mid-September morning, hundreds of friends and relatives of the slain, would-be rap mogul known as Wipeout fill the pews of the Community Christian Fellowship Church on Detroit’s East Side.
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