15-year-old Chicago gang member Shondale “Tooka” Gregory was murdered while waiting at a bus stop in 2012. He was allegedly a member of the Gangster Disciples (GD), rivals to Chief Keef‘s alleged crew, the Black Disciples (BD). His death was reportedly in retaliation for the death of another BD member, and his name soon became known outside of Chicago when Keef would often say he was “smoking Tooka” in his music as a jab at the slain teen.
Years later, King Von – also affiliated with the Black Disciples – brought Tooka’s name back up again when he rapped on his 2020 Lil Durk-assisted song “All These Niggas,” “Tooka in my lung, I say that every time, ’cause he got smoked.”
In a new interview with Chicago’s Drea O Show alongside other Chicago mothers who’ve lost their children to violence including the late FBG Duck’s mom, Tooka’s mother Dominique Boyd opened up about the pain she’s felt hearing her child reduced to a disrespectful synonym for smoking weed.
“I don’t get how they could be intimidated by someone who was 15 years old and want to take a person and want to be making it into a strain of weed,” she said. “Like how could you [say] ‘smoking on Tooka?’ Like where did that come from? Who smokes on a dead person? It makes me upset. … Where does the level of disrespect stop? He’s already dead.”
She continued on, noting how long it’s been since Tooka’s passing and how messed up it is that rappers continue to bring him up.
“People are just so cruel out here in this world,” Boyd added. “My son been dead for ten years. … If it ain’t the upcoming [rappers], it’s the ones already in the industry—and they don’t even know my son.”
FBG Duck’s mother LaSheena Weekly also spoke, expressing her wish that people will stop saying things about people who are no longer here to defend themselves.
“What I’m trying to establish now is a round table to bring all the moms together who have lost their children due to the violence,” Weekly said. “Due to the stigma that everybody has on Chicago with the smoking the dead people and disrespecting the dead. Hopefully, this movement will stop that and show people’s real talent.”
Watch the full conversation up top.