Rap Impresario Dies After Drive-By Shooting Submitted by N.O.V.A. Times Picayune 04-26-1998 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Survived by wife, two children The president of a local rap music label, who was just about to release the first album featuring himself, was shot to death in what friends and family described as a random act of violence. At least one other person was injured. Elton Wicker Jr., 32, president of Tombstone Records, was shot in a drive-by shooting on North Claiborne Avenue on Friday shortly before midnight after a stranger stopped him and asked for a cigarette light, witnesses said. Wicker died Saturday at 3:31 a.m., Charity Hospital spokesman Jerry Romig said. Family members said Wicker was shot in the back. James Joseph, a producer with the record company, said Wicker was "a very intelligent businessman," responsible for selling more than 100,000 records across the South in the past three years. Emmitt Kendrick, a manager of the Peaches Records store on Gentilly Boulevard, said Wicker was a heavyweight on the local rap scene. "They sold a lot of records," Kendrick said. Cheeky Blakk, who recorded the 1996 hit "Let Me Get That Outcha," was the label's most popular artist before she joined Total Respect records. Another person struck by the gunfire was taken to Charity with wounds to the leg, NOPD spokesman Sgt. Brett Thorne said. Police are not releasing the victim's name "to make sure he's not in any danger," Thorne said. Romig said the hospital had a man listed as "unknown" with a gunshot wound to the leg. That man was in guarded condition Saturday afternoon, he said. Wicker's relatives said five people were struck by bullets, but neither police nor the hospital confirmed that. Police have little information about the shooting, Thorne said. When officers arrived, both victims had been privately taken to the hospital, and the details "are kinda sketchy right now," he said. Wicker is the second official of Tombstone Records to be gunned down in the past five months. Sandy "Patrick" Price Jr., vice president, was killed Nov. 14 as he ran from three men trying to abduct him from his home in eastern New Orleans. Ethel Wicker said her son's shooting is not connected to Price's death and that the bullets that killed her son were not meant for him. "He was an innocent bystander," she said. Police are withholding judgment. Thorne said "it would be premature" to connect Wicker's death to Price's, and urged anyone with information about Friday's shooting to call Crimestoppers at 822-1111. Cedric Houston, a friend of Wicker's, said they walked out of Roosevelt's, a restaurant in the 1000 block of North Claiborne, after 11:30 p.m. "We were walking down the street," Houston said. "Somebody stopped, asked for a light. Shots rang out behind us." Houston said he and Wicker's brother-in-law, Collis Moten, then flagged down someone, who drove Wicker to Charity. Wicker's wife, Kim, called him her "best friend and first love." The couple started dating when she was 13. She said her husband was a wonderful father to their two children, Elton III, and Kerrionne, Elton also gave to the community, she said, running a local basketball league for neighborhood boys and buying Christmas toys for residents of their entire street. Kim Wicker said her husband had his run-ins with the law years ago; he was arrested on aggravated assault charges in 1990 and was charged with possession and distribution of cocaine in 1991. But Wicker had "legitimized himself" and became known as the neighborhood entrepreneur and philanthropist, his wife said. "Whoever killed him, they don't know what they took from me," she said. "(He) was like my father, my friend, my husband." Funeral plans are pending. As for Tombstone Records, "I'm gonna try and handle it," Kim Wicker said with some trepidation. She said she will ask her husband's friends for help. "His close friend knows a lot about the business," she said. Joseph said Wicker was planning to release his debut album, "Downtown Shotcallers," next Saturday. Kim Wicker said her husband chose the name Tombstone after watching the 1994 western starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. "He really liked that movie," she said.