The world in which we exist is shared by the actuality of a rapper named Assassin who was a member of The Mobsters. There is another world that exists in which Assassin was a real person with a real name and real life. The two worlds do not happen to collide in public awareness.

Any online search for Assassin will reveal the unknowing. There is no birth name nor picture attached to his otherwise blank Discogs page. He was known as either Assassin (in short) or Blassin Assassin (in full). He was from Los Angeles in California and likely the South Central area specifically. He was a member of the Bloods street gang. He provided multiple uncredited verses to Sinister’s 1994 album Mobbin 4 Life as a member of The Mobsters. His only other appearance was on M.C. Mr. Tink’s Quest for Survival of the same year for which he is credited as Assassin of The Mobsters. The description of a YouTube upload for a song on which he appears, Sinister’s “Buck Em Down”, claims that he “is/was homeless” in 2014. The comment section of the same upload includes contributions by someone claiming to be fellow The Mobsters member Big Base who says that Assassin died of a heart attack. His date of birth and date of death are not known.

Assassin – of course – existed. He would have felt the warm breeze of Californian nights, traversed the streets of his dangerous neighbourhood with the emboldenment of his crew and clasped the steel of a handgun within his palm. He was entrapped within the confines of being a gang member but also possessed creative inhibition showcased in his ability to write and rap. It was through his associations with fellow gang members, Sinister and M.C. Mr. Tink, that allowed him to briefly pursue the opportunity for something more.

It is on Sinister’s Mobbin 4 Life that sees Assassin in his fleeting moment of full flight. Sinister enlisted the assistance of his group The Mobsters to make appearances throughout. Assassin was one of its members alongside Big Base, G-Man and Lunatik. His distinctively accented voice and punctuated style of rapping make him the standout performer on the album. He often holds the ending sound of his bars to make them linger in their extremity. A seemingly unobtrusive line in his opening verse on “Buck Em Down” – “a uzi will make you feel woozy” – is so potent that it is converted into the song’s hook. The efficiency in his self-expression result in comparisons for his vigour on “Ya Get Mobbed On” – “if I was crack, I’d be the high that you die on” – and reasonings for his life of crime on “Mobbin 4 Life” – “I can’t find a motherfuckin’ job, that’s why I’m robbin’!” Assassin had a tremendous presence that is amplified only by its lack of recorded quantity.

What happened to Assassin after 1994 is not publicly known. I wonder if he felt the abilities of his potential and attempted to produce more recordings. It was unfortunately more likely that he resorted to his street life. His collaborator Sinister never escaped and was killed in an unsolved shooting in 2007. Assassin at least avoided such a casualty if he did die of a heart attack.

The beauty of music is the capturing of experiences otherwise forgotten. If not for the happenings of circumstance, the voice of Assassin would have been lost to the neighbourhoods of Los Angeles and never made it out of the environment that he inhabited. The existence of his life instead is immortalised – even if we know little else about it.