A rapper from pioneering hip-hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five has been convicted of the fatal stabbing of a homeless man.
Nathaniel Glover, 62, better known as Kidd Creole, was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter in the 2017 stabbing of 55-year-old John Jolly in Manhattan, on April 7, 2022.
Jolly, whom Glover had never met, walked up to him and asked, “What’s up?”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is New York City. It’s 12 o’clock at night,” Scottie Celestin, Glover’s lawyer told the jury. “Who’s saying ‘What’s up?’ to you with good intentions? His fear for his life was reasonable.”
Glover pulled out a steak knife and stabbed Jolly twice in the chest. The man later died at a nearby hospital.
Glover’s defense team argued his stabbing was an act of self-defense, and Jolly’s death was a result of alcohol, as he was allegedly drunk during the altercation, and medication the hospital gave him.
The prosecutors referenced an interview Glover did with the police when he admitted he thought Jolly was trying to hit on him. In a 2021 interview with The Source, Glover denied he’s homophobic.
“They basically portray[ed] me as the villain when I was the one just walking down the street minding my business,” Glover told The Source. “I had no intention when I left my house that night to do anything harmful to anybody, for any reason.
“Now I’m fighting the image that they portrayed me as a person who’s intolerant of people with alternative lifestyles and that’s not true.”
Glover’s sentencing hearing is set for May 4.
