Bay Area Rapper The Jacka Killed In Shooting

The Jacka was killed in a shooting in East Oakland, California last night (Feb. 2). CBS reports that the Bay Area rapper, whose real name was Dominic Newton and, was shot several times last night around 8:15 p.m. on MacArthur Boulevard. No suspects have been identified in the shooting thus far. Newton was 37 years old.

The Jacka was a popular West Coast rapper, who rose to prominence in the '90s as a member of Mob Figaz. He dropped his first studio album, Jacka Of The Mob Figaz, back in 2001 and has put out several collaborative albums and tapes since. In the last two years, The Jacka released four projects. The first was his solo album What Happened To The World followed by two collaborative LP with Freeway, Highway Robbery and Write My Songs. He also teamed up with fellow Bay area MC Blanco for Game Over, which was produced entirely by producer Bedrock. More recently, The Jacka was featured on Berner's "Cry", featuring Curren$y and Smiggs, as well as "No Time" alongside Freeway and Joe Blow.

The Jacka was a regional star but was very well known up and down the northern half of the West Coast. The low-key tough guy maintained a strong fanbase for over a decade with hard street anthems. Friend and director, Ben Griffin touched on Jacka's importance to his scene, telling REVOLT that even if "in certain places you may not know who he was, if you were in the Bay Area and a new Jacka album came out, you were hearing it out the window of every car on every corner.”