anyone can be a rock singer, there's a million rock local rock bands all across america, being in a basement/garage rock band is just as common as local/novice rapper
lol @ a tight knit community, it's 2022, if their known artists were dying, it's on TMZ and social media. and we're not talking about drugs, we're talking about violence and homicide...
2 doesn't negate the fact that you can choose not to go back to or be involved with the people from the past. especially given the average gang nikka is not venturing further than their neighborhood. don't go visit other hoods trying to prove yourself (PNB rock) and don't go back to the places you frequented growing up where you may have made enemies (ie dont go hang out at the local club after a performance in your hometown). lot of excuses being made for people choosing to be stupid in how they move knowing the reality of how people operate in our hoods
Here's the thing though - now it's hip-hops turn in the cycle. When 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's singers were associated with the mob, and entourages and artists were disappearing, it made the news. Soul singers of the 60's & 70's, it made the news. Rockers with the biker clubs in the 70's, 80's and 90's, it made the news...at alarming rates. The people still mingled with their criminal element. That's engrained in society. But now the mob is virtually non-existent, R&B is dead, pop singers are manufactured from childhood biker clubs aren't what they were and hip-hop is at the forefront.
As for country music, no one cares about it enough for it to be front page. It's mostly maintained it's for its people roots, so I'd assume they have their incidents as well that aren't front page. Country was once a twisted twin of hip-hop, and now it's what hip-hop used to be.