EST Gee suffered a tragic loss on July 21st. The rapper's longtime manager, EST Big Beach, was reportedly shot and killed in Kentucky. According to WDRB, EST Big Beach was found by police in a vehicle in downtown Louisville. Emergency Medical Services was called to the scene shortly after police arrived, but the manager was pronounced dead. Louisville Metro Police Department spokesperson Aaron Ellis claimed that LMPD have opened an investigation into the shooting, but no suspects have yet been identified. EST Big Beach was 31 years old.
EST Big Beach was in Louisville to support EST Gee's July 20th concert. The latter was the driving force behind the EST Gee + Friends Summer Jam, which took place at KFC Yum Center. EST Gee brought out a number of superstar artists during the concert, including Lil Baby, Future and 42 Dugg. EST Gee is no stranger to violence. In 2019, the rapper was shot five times while driving back from a music video shoot. He told Rolling Stone he was fully expected to die, but managed to make a full recovery with only slight visual impairment in his left eye.
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EST Gee's Manager Was Found Shot In Downtown Louisville
Gee also spoke on the attention that rappers get from shooting, when compared with those who aren't in front of the camera. "Regular n**gas is targeted every day," he asserted. "Regular n**gas get robbed for their jewelry every day. That sh*t don’t be on Instagram. Is it still sad? The sh*t ain’t [perceived as] sad, it’s only sad when it’s a rapper." Gee's statements were blunt and bleak enough to intimidate the Rolling Stone journalist conducting the interview. "I feel his eyes peering at me through his Black shades," they wrote. Sadly, Gee's comments about non-rappers being claimed has taken on new relevance in light of his manager's death.
EST Gee has not commented on EST Big Beach's passing, but he has referenced his manager in song. On the 2019 single "El Toro," the rapper shouts out his manager for being hustling alongside him in the years prior to his fame. "I bet he spend his nights and days chasin' a b*tch, I can’t trip," EST Gee spits. "Summer '18, me and big Beach had three bricks, on my d*ck. Six months before, all I had saved, I had spent." EST fans have flooded the comment section of Big Beach's Instagram to pay their respects.
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