Rapper Kidd Creole was arrested early Wednesday and charged with stabbing a drunk homeless man to death in Midtown Manhattan. Creole, 57, told police he thought the man was hitting on him.
John Jolly, 55, was found on a sidewalk in Midtown just before midnight on Tuesday. Emergency responders initially thought he was passed out drunk until they noticed he was suffering from stab wounds in his chest. Jolly was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.
Creole, whose real name is Nathaniel Glover, told police he stabbed Jolly because he thought the convicted rapist was making a sexual advance toward him.
“He turned, interpreted that the guy was making an advance toward him, and one thing led to another,” a police source told CBS News.
The source said the two men began fighting and Glover “shivved him twice in the chest” with a sharp object.
Glover, who worked as a security guard and handyman, was identified through surveillance video footage.
CBS reports Jolly had a long criminal history that included convictions for sexual assault and rape.
Glover is best known as an original member of the legendary rap pioneers Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5. The group rose to fame in the Bronx in the 1970s with the rap anthem “The Message” about the harsh reality of life in the ghetto and the prison system.
The track includes the chorus:
-
Don’t push me ’cause I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to lose my head
It’s like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how I keep from goin’ under
Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five is the first rap group to be inducted into award Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. The group is pictured above at the 22nd Annual Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel March 12, 2007.
The Furious Five is scheduled to perform as a group for the first time since 2013 on August 20 in Philadelphia, HipHopDX reports.
Original member Raheim gave a statement to HipHopDX about Glover’s arrest.
“It’s definitely a downer,” Rahiem, pictured below, told DX.
“It’s an unfortunate circumstance. We don’t really have all the information of what happened, but I would just go out on a limb and say this person he had the incident with was a homeless person, so I can only assume he maybe asked him for money, and maybe based on how he responded, he and the homeless man exchanged words. I don’t know, but that’s what it seemed based on what the Daily News reported. I believe he’s incarcerated, so I don’t think we will have an opportunity to speak with him and get his side of the story directly.”
Photos by Peter Kramer/Getty Images, Scott Gries/Getty Images
