Atlanta rapper Silento, known for his 2015 chart-topper “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),” has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to shooting his cousin dead in 2021.
Silento (Ricky Lamar Hawk) had been scheduled to stand trial this week over the death of his cousin Frederick Rooks. Instead, the 27-year-old rapper took a plea deal on Wednesday (June 11).
The rapper pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, gun possession and concealing a death but said he was mentally ill when the crimes were committed. The manslaughter charge was downgraded from a harsher malice murder count in his indictment, while Georgia prosecutors agreed to drop another felony murder charge.
DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Courtney Johnson sentenced Silento to 30 years in prison following the plea. He’ll get credit for the four years he’s spent in jail since his 2021 arrest.
Prosecutors claim Silento shot his 34-year-old cousin Rooks multiple times in February 2021 and then fled the scene. Silento allegedly admitted to killing Rooks during a post-arrest interview with investigators, and prosecutors say bullet casings recovered from the scene matched a gun found on the rapper when he was apprehended.
A rep for Silento said when he was arrested in 2021 that the rapper had been “suffering immensely from a series of mental health illnesses.” He was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder in jail, according to court filings.
Speaking to Billboard following the plea and sentencing on Wednesday (June 11), Silento’s attorney Keith Adams said, “For the first time since he’s been arrested, Ricky is in his right mind, and he’s in a place where he has a full understanding of everything that happened and what brought him here.”
“He’s been dealing with mental illness since the age of 12, and it’s unfortunate that it ended that way,” Adams said. “We think the outcome is appropriate, and we look forward to continued improvement in his mental health.”
“Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” spawned a viral dance craze in 2015 and spent 51 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 3. In 2019, Billboard named the track one of the 100 Songs That Defined the Decade.
Silento faced a number of legal troubles after the success of “Watch Me.” In 2017, he was held in the United Arab Emirates over a business dispute with a local concert promoter, after which a court ordered him to pay 300,000 dirhams ($81,500) for failing to play two scheduled shows in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi.
In 2020, Silento was arrested twice in two days in California for domestic violence and for walking into a stranger’s home holding a hatchet. Later the same year, he was arrested again for driving 143 mph on Interstate 85 in Georgia.
This story was updated on June 11 at 7:12 p.m. ET to add a statement from Silento’s attorney.
