Bay Area rapper Lil Yase slain

Larry Jones always knew when serious violence was about to break out at the Sunnydale projects because Mark Alexander — later known as the rap star Lil Yase — would quietly slip away and hole up in the safety of the community center.

“He walked a fine line,” said Jones, a longtime community leader and youth counselor in the Sunnydale neighborhood. “When trouble would come, he would find his way back to the rec center. He would go hang out in the computer lab by himself. That is when we knew something was brewing.”

It was Lil Yase’s aversion to conflict, and ability to separate himself from turf fights that too

“He was a really fun, energetic young man who was full of ideas. We really thought he made it out of here. This community is crushed.”

Larry Jones, youth counselor in San Francisco’s Sunnydale neighborhood

often turn deadly in the Sunnydale housing development, that made it all the more shocking when Jones learned the rapper was shot early Saturday morning a block from the Dublin/ Pleasanton BART Station.

Lil Yase, born Alexander Mark Antonyyo Jr. but known as Mark Alexander growing up, was shot just after midnight near the entrance to the Dublin/ Pleasanton BART parking garage, authorities said. Officers arrived at Valley Medical Care Center in Pleasanton about 1 a. m. after receiving reports that a man had arrived with multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Dublin Police Department. He was transported by ambulance from the care center to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, where he died. He was 26.

After receiving information about the shooting, officers found a crime scene in the 5100 block of Iron Horse Parkway,

less than half a mile away from the BART station, police said.

The incident was baffling because the rap star had no known adversaries nor did he have any connection to Dublin, said Justin Miranda, Yase’s business partner at 420 Highway Productions, which has a studio in Novato. A few hours before the shooting Yase had told friends he was on his way to the studio.

“We don’t have any idea why he was out there,” Miranda said. “It was not an area that he frequented or where he knew anybody. He didn’t have enemies or rap beefs. He wasn’t in a gang. He transcended all of that.”

While some of his raps included references to the violence he grew up around, it was not reflective of his life, Miranda said.

“He was a real nice kid, a kindhearted guy who looked out for his friends,” Miranda said. “His lyrics were not indicative of who he was as a person. A lot of it was about things he saw in the neighborhood he came out of. A lot of it was fiction.”

Lil Yase’s rapping style was a unique San Francisco spin on “mumble rap” — shortcadenced and minimalist — that influenced Bay Area rappers like Shoreline Mafia. He had released a new single, “Case Closed” in October and had recently announced a collaborative EP with fellow Bay Area rapper ItsFatFat. In the past, he had collaborated with Shoreline Mafia, Too Short, Drakeo the Ruler and others. A 2019 collaboration with Shoreline Mafia has nearly 1 million streams on YouTube.

Toward the end of his life, Yase spent most days in the studio and was focused as much on helping other rappers.

“He was still recording, but his main focus was getting the label up and running,” Miranda said. “He was there every night with the guys. You don’t see that in the rap industry very often. It’s always that you have to be the baddest and biggest and coolest. He didn’t feel that way. He wanted to lift up other artists.”

Jones thinks it’s likely that Yase was targeted because of some of his collaborations with other rappers.

“An artist like Yase who raps in other people’s songs can get caught up in other people’s trouble,” Jones said. “You might not be involved in the stuff in the song, but they are going to attack you with the same vigor as the guys who you are rapping with. You become a target.

“He was a pretty boy who attracted a lot of attention from the opposite sex,” Jones said. “He rapped about girls and partying and having fun. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body.”

With his 6foot6, thin frame, good looks and charisma, Lil Yase was the center of attention starting at a young age, said Jones, who as a social worker was his case manager during his middle and high school years.

Yase got into some trouble in high school but managed to get off probation while still a juvenile. He returned to Thurgood Marshall High School, where he was a standout basketball player, averaging 16 points a game and leading the team to a playoff victory his senior year with a 30point, 20rebound performance against Mission High School.

“Mark is fantastic, and they can say what they want about who is the best big man in the league, and I’ll keep that to myself, but he outplayed every big man on that floor and he played practically the whole game,” Thurgood Marshall coach Dezebee Miles told the San Francisco Examiner in 2012.

After high school, as Yase broke into the rap industry and as his career gained traction, he started touring and bounced between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. He was earning a living making music and was the most successful rapper to come out of the Sunnydale neighborhood, Jones said.

“He was a really fun, energetic young man who was full of ideas,” said Jones. “We really thought he made it out of here. This community is crushed. These kids around here looked up to him as someone who got out. We are going to miss him.”