Killers of Drill Rapper Jailed for Life After ‘Tables Were Turned’

Salem Koudou was murdered after he mounted a disastrous attack on rivals

An undated image of Salem Koudou, a drill rapper known as 16Shotz, who was stabbed to death in Brixton, south London, on Aug. 20, 2020. Metropolitan Police/PA

LONDON—Two men have been jailed for life for murdering a drill music performer who had the tables turned on him when he drove onto the turf of a rival gang in south London and attacked a rival rapper with an “enormous knife.”

Yaseen Bullock, 21, was convicted of murdering Salem Koudou, 20, at the first of three murder trials in October 2021. In October 2022 Darius Kwakye, 29, was also convicted of the murder of Koudou, who was better known by his drill name, 16Shotz.

Sentencing the pair at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday, Judge Andrew Lees said: “You both took part knowingly, willingly and with the intention to kill. When the tables were turned you both participated in a premeditated murder.”

The judge jailed Mr. Kwakye for a minimum term of 19 years and ordered Mr. Bullock to serve at least 17-and-a-half years.

Two other drill artists were acquitted at a third trial earlier this year. Shaquille Graham, 27, was better known as MDargg, and Mickel Carty, 19, who used the street name Lil Rass.

Two other men—Donte McCalla and Tristan Bullock, both 21—were acquitted at the two earlier trials.

Mr. Koudou, was a prominent member of TeamRAW, a drill collective based in Stockwell, south London and comprised of members of the M Block and All ‘Bout Money (ABM) gangs.

On Aug. 20, 2020, Mr. Koudou and two other members of the Stockwell-based ABM entered the Angell Town estate in Brixton in a stolen VW Golf, where members of the 150 gang were celebrating the birthday of Tyreicke Williams, a rapper known as Stickz.

The Angell Town estate—which is the home territory of the 150 drill gang—in Brixton, London, on June 20, 2023. Chris Summers/The Epoch Times

Stickz and 16Shotz had been antagonising each other with “diss tracks” in the run-up to August 2020.

The car carrying Mr. Koudou crashed and the two other men ran off—police later found 14 live rounds of ammunition in the car and believe one of the other men had been armed with a gun—but Mr. Koudou got out an “enormous knife” and attacked Stickz.

But Mr. Koudou, who was armed with a Black Panther machete with a 45 cm serrated blade, was soon outnumbered by young men—most of them armed with knives and machetes—from the Angell Town estate, who chased him across a main road and into a cul-de-sac, where they cornered and killed him.

Drill Video Called Killer ‘Flick-Knife Pro’

Among the agreed facts in the case was a drill music video, released on Sept. 17, 2020, in which Yaseen Bullock—whose street name was KTN—was referred to as a “flick-knife pro.”

At the second trial, prosecutor Oliver Glasgow, KC, said the “tables were turned” on Mr. Koudou.

Mr. Glasgow told the jury: “He was stabbed more than 30 times and the injuries he sustained were catastrophic. His lungs, liver, and stomach were damaged by the knives that were used to stab him, and the blades were wielded with such ferocity that some of the wounds were as deep as 14 cm, others damaged the bones of his rib cage, and one went through his skull.”

An undated image of Wynne Road—where Salem Koudou was chased and cornered by a rival gang who murdered him—in Brixton, south London. Chris Summers/The Epoch Times

Mr. Glasgow said the ABM and the 150 gang, and their allies the 410, “enjoyed taunting and attacking each other when the opportunity arose” and he added, “Salem Koudou intended to ensure that Aug. 20, 2020, was to provide such an opportunity but … his plan did not work out as he had hoped.”

‘Significant Act of Provocation’

During the sentencing hearing, Mr. Kwakye’s barrister, Jeremy Dein, KC, said Mr. Koudou’s actions—which included crashing a stolen car into Mr. Kwakye’s own car, and then attacking people with a machete—were a “significant act of provocation.”

Mr. Dein accepted the murder was an act of “gratuitous violence” but he did not accept Mr. Kwakye himself intended to kill.

The trials were not told of the drill music videos which were produced by rival gangs afterwards, mocking the death of 16Shotz. These included a track by Skeng, Perm, and Darko, called “3 Outta Ride.”

On Oct. 30, 2022 Perm—real name Lemar Urquhart—was gunned down in Brixton, south London, in an attack which also killed a Deliveroo delivery driver, Guilherme Messias Da Silva, 23.

Urquhart, 27, was the son of boxer Dillian Whyte’s promoter Dean Whyte.

At the opening of his inquest in November 2022, Detective Inspector Jason Fitzpatrick said the shooter remained at large.

Eight months later nobody has been charged with the murder of Mr. Urquhart or Mr. Da Silva.