Rapper Whose Music Touched on Her Addiction Dies at 25

Philly performer Chynna Rogers is gone
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 9, 2020 8:12 AM CDT

Chynna Rogers, the Philadelphia rapper who had breakout hits with 2013's "Selfie" and 2014's "Glen Coco," has died at the age of 25. "Chynna was deeply loved and will be sorely missed," her family wrote in a statement, per Pitchfork. Rogers' manager tells People that she died Wednesday at her Philly home; the cause of death wasn't immediately clear. Rogers—who just released her latest four-song EP, In Case I Die First, in December—started out as a model for the Ford agency when she was just 14, after a scout spotted her at the Six Flags Great Adventure theme park in New Jersey, per Yahoo Entertainment. A year later, she found herself under the wing of ASAP Yams, the late founder of the ASAP Mob (the rap collective from which ASAP Rocky emerged), after she tweeted to him she wanted to be his intern.

ASAP Yams died of a drug overdose in 2015. Despite her youth, Rogers addressed serious issues in her music, including her own struggles with an addiction to opiates and her desire to finally get sober. "I felt crazy," she said in a 2017 interview with Vibe. "I didn't want to be a statistic. I didn't want to go out that way and people be like 'I told you so," or glamorize ... [drugs], because I don't feel like that." In an interview the next year with Pitchfork—which noted her "honesty can be as crushing as it is captivating, but more than that, it's necessary"—Rogers said her music served as a form of escapism for her, as well as a way for her fans to get through tough times of their own. "[It's] for angry people with too much pride to show how angry they are," she said. Rogers is survived by her father and three siblings. (More obituary stories.)

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