Ethan Reyes
Ethan Reyes, stage name Notti Osama, was a promising young rapper who made headlines when stabbed to death in a brawl at just 14 years old. The horrifying incident took place at a Manhattan subway station in July 2022, and resulted in an outpouring of support from Ethan’s friends and loved ones, including his older brother David DeShaun Reyes (stage name DD Osama), who is an aspiring drill rapper himself.
‘Why did you leave me?’ David wrote in the aftermath of Ethan’s death. ‘Why you tell me that death is easy?’.
The deadly scuffle between Ethan and his 15-year-old rival, Kelvin Martinez, took place at three in the afternoon on a Saturday. According to law enforcement sources, Ethan and Kelvin had had a long-running feud, although the exact motives behind Ethan’s stabbing remain unknown. Despite being promptly transported to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, the musician was declared dead.
Friends of Ethan held a candlelight memorial in Manhattan shortly after his death, with one of his associates describing the rapper as ‘the life of the party’ with a ‘million-dollar smile’. Ethan was born on 17th January 2008, in Harlem, New York, USA, and was reportedly 5ft 4in (162cm) tall at the time of his passing.
Those who were hoping to see Kelvin in jail for the stabbing were left disappointed, as in October 2022 the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office ended its manslaughter case against the teenager. Although the decision was a hard one to make, prosecutors were forced to drop the case after reviewing video surveillance and witness interviews, as they were unable to disprove beyond reasonable doubt that Kelvin was defending himself when he stabbed Ethan.
Verdict
At the time of Ethan’s death, he and his family had recently relocated from Harlem to Yonkers, perhaps due to gang-related problems. On the day of the stabbing, he was hanging out in his old neighborhood of Hamilton Heights with two associates when they spotted Kelvin. Ethan grabbed a broom handle to defend himself, and he and his friends followed Kelvin into the subway station, cornering him at the end of the platform. Surveillance footage then shows that Kelvin stabbed Ethan in the abdomen after being hit with the broom handle.
After stabbing Ethan, Kelvin was knocked onto the subway tracks and had a sharp object thrown at him which left puncture wounds on his body. Ethan collapsed on the platform, whereas Kelvin managed to pull himself off the tracks and depart the scene. Later that day, his mother brought him to the police station to speak to detectives.
At first, police claimed that Kelvin would be charged with second-degree murder. However, prosecutors only filed a first-degree manslaughter charge against him. In the weeks leading up to the court case, investigators looked into Kelvin’s claims, as the teenager alleged that Ethan’s associates had assaulted him prior to the murder. As the case was ultimately dismissed, all court records were sealed, and the story appeared to die down when Ethan’s family declined to comment on the verdict.
Family
Ethan’s death sparked a huge online discourse about the violent culture that permeates rap music, especially the drill subgenre. Nevertheless, his brother David continues to rap, and has amassed two million followers on Instagram, with his follower count shooting up after Ethan’s untimely demise.
David is the third of six siblings, and released his first song, “Aftermath”, alongside Ethan and fellow rapper Blockwork in 2021. In June of the same year, David’s music began receiving attention, but it took a year for his collaboration with Ethan, “Dead Opps”, to become popular. Shortly after Ethan passed away, David also released “E.4.N”, which stands for “Everything for Notti”.
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Since then, David has collaborated with the likes of Lil Baby, Rylo Rodriguez, Coi Leray, and Lil Durk, who are all considered heavy hitters in the rap industry. In December 2022, he joined forces with New York rapper Lil Mabu for their single and music video “Throw”, and just two months later he worked with Coi on “Upnow”. His first album, “Here 2 Stay”, launched in May 2023 to positive fan reviews, and spawned two versions of the single “Let’s Do It”.
David, who traveled the States with Lil Durk in July 2023 as a supporting artist on the “Sorry for the Drought” tour, is affiliated to the OY (Original Youngins) gang and flaunts his gang affiliation via his music and social media posts.
More recently, David dropped his long-awaited collaboration with Sugarhill DDot, “Baby Wait”, as well as the single “2 Deep”. Although the rapper has a long way to go to reach mainstream recognition, he’s currently signed to Alamo Records, which is part of Sony Music, and has everything necessary to make it big in the music industry.
Moving on to Ethan’s other siblings, he has two other brothers who are drill rappers and go by the stage names of JayKlickin and JStar Balla. Jay’s birth name is Justin Reyes, and he was reportedly born in January 2005, making him the second-oldest of the Reyes siblings. Despite not having reached his younger brother’s level of fame, Justin is known for songs such as “Pain”, “Life Goes On”, and “Love Me”. The rapper signed to a record label in 2020, which allowed him a budget to film music videos, and promote his works to a wider audience.
As for JStar Balla, he is the oldest Reyes brother, born in 1990. Although there’s a considerable age gap between JStar and his younger siblings, they’re close as can be and often post each other’s music on social media. Some doubt that JStar will ever become a prominent rap artist, and feel that he’s capitalizing off his younger brothers’ notoriety, but it must be said that the musician has grown a respectable fanbase, and has thousands of monthly Spotify listeners thanks to hits such as “Like This” and “All Stars”.
Next up is Melz, the only Reyes sister that we know of. As Melz has no interest in the music industry and rarely posts on social media, her digital footprint is a considerably smaller one: in fact, she’s mainly posted by her brothers’ fan pages, and is so lowkey that her real name and birthday are a mystery.
