Earlier this month, the hip hop world lost a legend when Geto Boys rapper Bushwick Bill lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. The 52-year-old spoke with TMZ prior to his death about starting new projects to open up streams of income for his children, but his illness worsened before he was able to launch many of those efforts.
In turn, his family has started a GoFundMe campaign with the hopes of raising $100K to help his family with expenses as well as his children. There have been false memorial crowdfunding campaigns and events being put on in his name to raise funds that have nothing to do with the family. They wrote, "This is the official fund established in honor of the late Richard Shaw, better known as Bushwick Bill. This was created in response to the hundreds of people that have reached out and inquired about how they can help, as well as to combat the recent fake/unauthorized memorial events being promoted and claiming to donate proceeds to the family. ALL donations will be contributed toward his family’s expenses, as well as carry out Bill’s final wish that his 4 kids are financially taken care of. Whether you’re donating or sharing this page, we thank you, and we appreciate your support."
While a few donations have trickled in, the family also found themselves at the center of a backlash from people who criticized them for the amount of money they requested. Hoping to clear the air, Bushwick's family took to the late rapper's Instagram page to set the record straight. "There’s been some confusion due to false reports, in regards to the intent of the GoFundMe page," they wrote. "It appears that many people have either not read the description on the page (photo 2), or just completely misunderstood the context. This amount wasn’t configured solely for the funeral expenses, hence why it’s not even listed in that category nor mentioned on there."
They continued, "The description clearly states that the Bushwick Bill Fund was created in his honor by the family for 2 reasons: To provide everyone who inquired about how they can help out/where they can donate with a trustworthy place to give directly to us (to help with ALL of the expenses of his), and also to fulfill his final wish that his kids are taken care of with what he wanted them to have (originally from the tour that was canceled.) This was created to combat all of the fake/unauthorized events composed by random people claiming proceeds would be donated to the family. It’s unfortunate and insensitive that people are going so far to misconstrue this entire situation and create some kind of messy scandal out of it. We hope this clears things up for you all, and we appreciate the support. Sincerely, The Family."