Young Lay's connection to this.. was Daphne was his girlfriend and the baby Le Zhan was his first child... Adding to this drama is speculation from Vallejo PD who are claiming that Layıs recent signing to Atlantic Records and the harsh lyrics in some of his songs may have been the root cause of this tragedy. The train of thought behind this is that Young Lay's rapid rise within the music industry has caused intense jealousy from street rivals within Vallejo. In other words the whole crab in the barrel syndrome was in full effect...

Lay's situation couldnıt have been any more screwed... Last year he hit the scene with a blaze of glory when he penned a song called All About My Fetti for the sound track to movie New Jersey Drive... The cut was a big hit here in the Bay and lots of other places around the country... This was the big break that Lay needed to start moving on up from the rough side of town.. Just as he was getting ready to start doing his album..Lay was shot in the head while sitting at a stop light with some friends.. People thought he was gonna pass on.. as he lay in a coma for days..

There was a lot of speculation surrounding the shooting... Vallejo PD claimed he was an intended target...Friends and supporters around town said it was it a case of mistaken identity... Whatever the case. Lay's recovery was nothing short of a miracle and the fact that he was able to return to the rap game and continue his climb was proof of God's continued blessings...
For Lay one can only imagine what he's going through right now... especially with all this talk about him somehow causing this catastrophe with his music...For the record.. I contacted Vallejo PD and Lt Al Lehman left a message categorically denying that Vallejo PD felt Lay's music led to the killing. In his message he noted that VPD leans more upon the theory that there were people jealous of Lay.. In other words 'playa haters'.. tried to get at Lay by killing his girl and snatching his son...One can only wonder when the madness will cease.

Lay's manager Leyla Steinberg noted that Lay despite his recent success was very much involved within the lives of his child and girlfriend. She added that Lay had matured a lot since his shooting and grew even more with the birth of his son. My hopes and prayers that this will not set him back as he was on a positive course. Even more importantly everyone's prayers are for the speedy recovery of his son.

This latest incident has left everyone in the Bay Area stunned and taking a second look at long running neighborhood rivalry within the Vallejo city limits between North [Crest Side] and South [Hillside] of V-Town. Folks outside of Vallejo first caught wind of this rivalry when fellow V-Town rappers E-40 and Mac Dre used to trade barbs on their records.
For a while it seemed to ebb especially when groups like E-40 and N2Deep started to gain national exposure and Vallejo began to flex its wealth of rap talent. However, as of late things have heated up so much so that artist like Mac Mall who hail from the Crest and his cousin E-40 who hails from the Hillside.. canıt do shows together in Vallejo because of threat of their respective neighborhoods mixing it up...Folks are hoping that this latest incident was not borne out that ongoing conflict. Out of the Vallejo incident there is going to be a huge peace march and rally this Sunday... It's called Stop The Violence and Break The Silence..It is expected that a lot of folks will turn out..and hopefully someone will speak up about the two girls who were seen leaving the house with an unidentified bundle...

For critics of hip hop, the Boyden killing and Lay's connection have given them yet another reason to point an accusatory finger at rap. Even though VPD has denied making such a connection...the talk within the media and around town hasn't subsided...As a journalist I definitely wanna set the record straight by noting that hip hop is not the cause of the day to day stress, strife, mayhem and drama within our lives...And while hip hop has had its bad days Iım not gonna make any leaping conclusions.. If we're gonna do this then I suggest we start blaming every bit of crime that has taken place on Al Pacino and his Godfather movies.

written by Davey D
5/24/96