Iyayi Orhue Amayo was 34 years old when he died on Thursday, November 9, 2017, in the Vermont Square neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds near West 42nd Street and Walton Avenue. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department South Bureau Homicide case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report said Amayo "was stabbed shortly after 3:30 a.m.," according to Los Angeles Police Det. Chris Barling. "People in the neighborhood found him wounded and called authorities," Barling said. Amayo was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:16 a.m., according to coroner's records. Detectives told the Times that Amayo "was not a gang member and the motive for his stabbing remains unclear."
He was more than a name in a coroner's log.
The Los Angeles Sentinel later published a story under the headline "Mother Still Grieves, Police Still Search Nine Months after Slaying of Local Rapper." According to the part of that story preserved for this research, "Kim Maxwell Harris, 63, lost her son Iyayi Amayo, a local talent in San Luis Obispo known as Da Cali Kid, November 9." The headline shows that, the following summer, his family was still mourning and detectives had not closed the case.
His music appears to have drawn notice on the Central Coast as well. The Santa Maria Times once profiled a local rap artist named Iyayi Orhue Amayo under the headline "IyayI: Local artist attempting revival of West Coast rap." The article opened by saying that Amayo "doesn't want the next hottest rap single, or best-selling album. His goal is much more historic than that." Given how unusual his full name is, that profile is very likely about the same man, which suggests he had been chasing a music career for years before his death.
Much is still missing from the public record. Nothing released so far says whether Amayo knew the person who stabbed him, whether he was walking, visiting someone or living nearby, or whether anyone saw the attack. Detectives did not describe a suspect or a vehicle, and no surveillance images were made public.
Vermont Square is an older, mostly residential neighborhood south of Exposition Park, made up largely of single-family homes and small apartment buildings on a grid of numbered streets. It is home to the Vermont Square Branch Library, one of the oldest branch libraries in the Los Angeles Public Library system. At 3:30 in the morning its side streets are usually quiet.
By the mid-2010s Los Angeles was recording roughly 250 to 300 homicides a year, among the lowest totals in decades, yet many of those killings still went unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Iyayi Orhue Amayo could be found in news archives or public records. More than eight years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Someone who was near West 42nd Street and Walton Avenue in the early morning hours of November 9, 2017, or who knew of trouble in Amayo's life in the weeks before, may hold the piece of information detectives need. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward.
The Times asked anyone with information to call detectives at 786-5110. Anyone with information can call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
