On a summer evening in Atlanta, the life of a man who had repeatedly defied death came to a violent end. Jabriel Abdurrahman, a 31-year-old male known in the music world as Yung Mazi, was shot and killed on Sunday, August 6, 2017. The fatal encounter occurred in the Kirkwood neighborhood, just as he was leaving the Urban Pie pizza restaurant on Hosea L. Williams Drive.
He was found with multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene, ironically just across the street from a police precinct. Officers in the vicinity heard between 10 and 25 gunshots ring out before the suspect fled.
Abdurrahman's death was the final chapter in a life marked by numerous near-fatal shootings. He had built a reputation for surviving gun violence, having been shot on multiple prior occasions. In a widely reported incident just eight months before his death, in December 2016, he was shot in the chest at a Waffle House in Buckhead. After that shooting, he famously tweeted, 'God made me bulletproof,' a post that was later deleted. He had told interviewers he had been shot as many as 10 times in his life, once even suffering a bullet wound to the head that required him to relearn basic functions like reading and speaking.
Friends and family remembered Abdurrahman as a father who was trying to turn his life around. Raised as a devout Muslim, he was an up-and-coming rapper affiliated with Kevin Gates' Bread Winners Association label. In the aftermath of his death, fellow Atlanta artists like Rich Homie Quan and Young Thug offered their condolences. A makeshift memorial was created at the site of the shooting as the community mourned.
Despite the public nature of the killing and its proximity to a police station, the investigation into Jabriel Abdurrahman's murder has remained stagnant. In the months and years following the shooting, Atlanta police have not publicly identified any suspects or made any arrests in the case. The homicide of the man who once considered himself bulletproof remains unsolved.
