NEW YORK — Rapper Kidd Creole was convicted of manslaughter on Wednesday in connection with the fatal stabbing of a homeless man in 2017.
A Manhattan jury found the rapper, whose real name is Nathaniel Glover Jr., guilty in the August 2017 stabbing of a homeless man, John Jolly, during an argument, The New York Times reported.
Glover, 61, who is from the Bronx, is best known as a founding member of the rap group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the newspaper reported. He was accused of stabbing Jolly twice in the chest with a steak knife in midtown Manhattan, according to The Associated Press.
“Nathaniel Glover committed a shocking act of violence,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “This conviction makes clear my office will hold people who commit violent crime accountable to the full extent of the law.”
Glover’s attorney, Scottie Celestin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the Times reported.
According to a videotaped interview with police after the stabbing, Glover claimed he became frustrated after believing that Jolly was making sexual advances toward him, Rolling Stone reported.
“To tell the truth, I thought he was gay and because I thought he was gay, and he was saying that to me, ‘What’s up,’ I was thinking that he was thinking (that) I was gay,” Glover said at the time, according to the magazine. “So I was a little annoyed by that.
“He approached me. I got a little nervous,” Glover stated. “So then I tried to back up a little bit, and he moved forward, and then I just took the knife and stabbed him … I wish I never would have seen him. It’s all my fault because I chose to stab him. I have to take responsibility for that.”
Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five formed in the late 1970s, according to the AP. The group’s signature song is 1982′s “The Message.” In 2007, the band became the first rap group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Glover will be sentenced on May 4, according to Rolling Stone. He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.