Silento (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
DECATUR, GA — Ricky Hawk, a local rapper whose song “Watch Me Whip/Nae Nae” went viral in 2015, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his cousin.
Hawk, who was more commonly known as Silento, was convicted Wednesday of multiple counts, including voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault in connection with the January 2021 death of 34-year-old Frederick Rooks III, the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office announced. He pleaded guilty but mentally ill, prosecutors said.
According to investigators, officers with the DeKalb County Police Department responded to the intersection of Deep Shoals Circle and Corners Crossing in the Panthersville area after receiving a call about a person shot.
When officers arrived, they found Rooks suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and several bullet casings near his body. Rooks was pronounced dead at the scene.
Authorities said several area residents reported hearing gunshots, and security camera footage from a nearby home showed a white BMW SUV fleeing the area just a few minutes after the gunfire.
A family member of Rooks later shared with officers that he was last seen with Hawk, who had picked Rooks up from a friend’s home in a white BMW SUV. The vehicle was also captured by a FLOCK camera at the intersection of Panthersville Road and Flat Shoals Road at 2:45 a.m. that same morning.
**READ MORE:**
Hawk was arrested on Feb. 1. During an interview with investigators, he admitted to shooting Rooks. Ballistics testing also matched the bullet casings recovered from the scene of the shooting to a gun found with Hawk when he was taken into custody. Additionally, GPS data for Hawk’s BMW SUV placed the vehicle at the scene of the murder.
"Watch Me Whip/Nae Nae" rose to the top of the Billboard magazine Hot 100 list and earned Hawk notoriety. He made multiple other albums, but said in an interview with the medical talk show “The Doctors” in 2019 that he struggled with depression and had grown up in a family where he witnessed mental illness and violence.
“I’ve been fighting demons my whole life, my whole life,” he said.
“Depression doesn’t leave you when you become famous, it just adds more pressure,” Hawk said then, urging others to get help. ”And while everybody's looking at you, they're also judging you. I don’t know if I can truly be happy, I don’t know if these demons will ever go away.”
Hawk had been struggling in the months before the arrest. His publicist, Chanel Hudson, has said he tried to kill himself in 2020.
In August 2020, Hawk was arrested in Santa Ana, California, on a domestic violence charge. The next day, the Los Angeles Police Department charged him with assault with a deadly weapon after witnesses said he entered a home where he didn't know anyone looking for his girlfriend and swung a hatchet at two people before he was disarmed.
Hawk was also arrested in August 2020 for reportedly driving 143 mph on I-85 and told police that he was being followed after leaving a club in Gwinnett County.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. [Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.](/georgia/decatur/subscribe)