bay area legend...
Mac Dre memorial takes place today
By RACHEL RASKIN-ZRIHEN, Times-Herald staff writer
The family of Andre Hicks, otherwise known as Mac Dre, is allowing fans to pay their last respects today to the former Vallejo rap artist as Kansas City police investigate his shooting death there a week ago.
The visitation will be held from noon to 5 p.m. today at the Mount Calvary Baptist Church, 1735 Enterprise Dr., Fairfield. The family is holding a private memorial service at another time, a Solano Valley Mortuary spokesperson said.
Kansas City Police Department Capt. Rich Lockhart said detectives there are following up on leads, but no suspect has been officially identified.
"We're still trying to identify who was driving the car. We're talking to all sorts of people and gathering information," Lockhart said. "We've got a pretty good idea, but it's a matter of putting all the puzzle pieces together, and a few of the pieces are still missing."
Hicks, 34, was fatally shot while seated in the back of a white van with tinted windows early last Monday on a nearly deserted Highway 71 in Kansas City. The van's driver lost control, the vehicle went over an embankment and Hicks was ejected from the vehicle. The driver, who survived, couldn't find Hicks in the dark, and went for help. Hicks was later found dead.
A tip led police to a stolen black 2003 Infiniti G36 they believe was used in the shooting, and then ditched.
Hicks was in town for a concert, and had performed the Friday before he died in Kansas City, Kan., police said. Police said they think Hicks may have been targeted because he decided not to perform at a private VIP party that Sunday night.
Hicks had been advertised as a headliner at the event, but apparently was not paid or asked to perform there, and only stayed for about 30 minutes, police said.
Hicks, who released more than 20 albums, including one recorded from prison, was enjoying a surge in popularity, record sales and radio airplay at the time of his death.
Friends of Mac Dre struggle to understand
By RACHEL RASKIN-ZRIHEN, Times-Herald staff writer
Family, friends and fans of Mac Dre were trying to make sense of the rapper's violent death Tuesday as investigators sifted through evidence that included a bullet-riddled van and what may be the suspect's 2003 Infiniti G36.
Dre, whose given name was Andre Hicks, was killed early Monday in Kansas City, Mo., when an unknown suspect fired through the vehicle on U.S. 71. Though the driver crawled to safety, Dre was thrown from the van and pronounced dead at the scene.
Kansas City police reported late Tuesday that Dre died from a bullet wound. He was 34.
"He was like the Beatles or Elvis, but on a smaller scale to a lot of people," said Vallejo native James Trujillo, otherwise known as Jay Tee of the rap group, N2DEEP. "I've known Dre since the late 1980s. He was my biggest influence. He was a for-real superstar."
Kansas City Police Department spokesman Darin Snapp said homicide detectives are following leads and releasing few details.
"There were about a dozen bullet holes (in the van), I can say that, but I can't say what kind of gun was used," Snapp said. "Only one person knows that, and that way, when we catch the perpetrator, he won't be able to say, I read it in the newspaper.' "
Snapp said police have "some pretty good leads on it," and are questioning "someone who's cooperating. We should know something by the end of the week."
Police linked the Infiniti to the shooting but declined to specify what the evidence was, reported Channel 9 in Kansas City. The vehicle was found with no license plates.
Dre had staged a concert in Kansas City, Kan., on Friday night and stayed in the area during the weekend.
Back in the Bay Area, despondent relatives and friends paid tribute to the pioneer rapper. "Life wasn't fair to Andre. It dealt him a pretty low deal, but he always managed to keep his spirits up. He'd look at you in a certain way, and you'd know he was going to be OK," said Betty Landers of Vallejo, the grandmother of Hicks' 13-year-old child, Dran Hicks.
Landers described Hicks as her daughter's boyfriend - the man her daughter used to skip school to see - "a long, lanky kid trying to make people happy. He was funny as hell.
"I grew to love Andre. He was never Mac Dre to me. He left a legend for all of us to learn - not to give up on your dreams," Landers said.
Others, too, believe Hicks is too widely remembered for youthful mistakes.
"He tried so hard to be a good person. He was a good boy, and now that he's gone, he should be left alone with all the negative stuff," said Bernard Hicks, Dre's uncle, and the brother of Vallejo teacher and former City Council member Foster Hicks.
Andre Hicks spent several years in prison for his part in an attempted bank robbery, and was linked to a rash of robberies in the early 1990s by north Vallejo's Romper Room Gang. Even so, many said Hicks had pulled his life together.
"He was a very good person," said Marquetta Hall, Dre's stepmother. "He was a very young man when he did those negative things he did. But he also funded children's programs in Sacramento, and did free concerts there and in the park by the North Vallejo Community Center, near the Country Club Crest where he had lived with his grandmother."
Dre would hand out turkeys in the Crest at Thanksgiving, said Hicks' half-sister, Jacquil Hicks.
"I'm not saying he was a saint, but he just did things, out of the kindness of his heart and wasn't the type who liked to brag," Hall said.
Hall said she met Hicks when he was about 9.
"He was the cutest little boy," Hall said. "He always said, When I get older I'm gonna be a rapper.' "
Hicks attended Peoples High School in Vallejo and was well-liked, if a little rowdy as a teenager, Hall said.
"But he was always well-mannered and respectful of his elders," Hall said. "I know he did some things here and there, but lots of people make bad choices in their past."
Hall said Hicks moved to Sacramento about four years ago to make a fresh start. Jacquil Hicks, 24, also of Sacramento, said she fondly recalls the early days in Vallejo with her brother.
"He was my only big brother, and I really looked up to him," she said. "He was my idol. I was a girl and I wanted to be him. I dressed up as him for Halloween in eighth grade at Vallejo Middle School and won the costume contest."
Jacquil Hicks said her famous brother inspired her to write, something she still does.
"I won a talent contest at Vallejo High School for rapping, because of his inspiration," she said.
"He wanted to be a real star and he knew he had to get away from all the negativity to get there and that's what he was doing," Jacquil Hicks said. "He was getting out of all that rowdiness. He'd gotten more mature, and he was on his way. It's really sad. It was too soon. He'd made it so far. He was almost there. It almost seems like there are forces that don't want to see people pull themselves out of the negative energy, because just when they start to do it, something like this happens."