Along Came Joyner
On June 6th, 2007, a junior in high school named Ross Capicchioni was shot three times in East Detroit by what he thought was one of his good friends who he thought he was just giving a ride somewhere. His “friend” affiliated himself with different gangs from Detroit and allegedly was asked to kill a random person in order to be allowed to join a certain gang. The attempted murderer ended up being brought into custody because of a phone call he made following the shooting. Against all odds Ross lived to tell his survival story and bring his attempted murderer to justice. In Joyner Lucas’s “Ross Capicchioni”, he tells the story of the attempted murder from both the side of the murderer and the victim. In this almost eight minute track he discusses and raps about how the two got close, the motive of the attack, the parents of the victim, and much more. Joyner Lucas does a great job telling this amazing story through two perspectives. This is a technique that has been explored on some of his more recent work with songs such as “I’m Not Racist”, using the same concept of expressing an idea through multiple perspectives.