A security guard for Drakeo the Ruler testified under oath that he saw rapper YG produce a knife and slash it toward him during the 2021 backstage fight in which Drakeo was fatally stabbed. That jaw-dropping testimony just resurfaced after more than four years of silence—and now a SWAT team responded to a property around 7 a.m. on July 23, with the California Highway Patrol leading the operation and Burbank SWAT assisting, and YG was detained during the response and later released. The culture is watching a case that should’ve been closed years ago finally getting the heat it deserves.
Alrick Cooper III, who was protecting Drakeo during the December 18, 2021, incident, said YG was “front and center” during the brawl and was one of three men carrying what appeared to be short, improvised knives. He described the weapon as a silver blade approximately three or four inches long with no handle, comparable to an improvised prison shank, and testified, “He was slashing at me with it, like getting me to back up.” Cooper recognized YG by his hazel eyes even though the rapper was wearing a ski mask. That’s a specific witness account under oath—not speculation, not rumor.
The deposition excerpts came from Cooper’s March 19, 2025 testimony, which surfaced last month in a court filing by attorneys representing Drakeo’s family in a civil lawsuit against festival organizers and security contractors. The civil case is separate from the murder investigation, which means this testimony has been documented in legal filings for months. But it’s only now, after YG’s dramatic SWAT detention this week, that the broader hip-hop world is catching wind of what a key witness actually said happened backstage that night.
Drakeo, whose real name was Darrell Caldwell, was stabbed at the Once Upon a Time in LA concert at Banc of California Stadium on Dec. 18, 2021, and was 28 years old. YG and Drakeo had a documented conflict before the killing. Drakeo had spent years clashing with rappers and alleged gang affiliates from Inglewood. Some of that hostility traced back to a 2016 shooting that killed Davion Gregory, a man prosecutors identified as affiliated with the Inglewood Family Gangster Bloods. Prosecutors accused Drakeo of responsibility for that killing, but a jury acquitted him of murder and attempted murder charges in 2019. The tension between these two was real, the history was loaded, and then Drakeo got stabbed at a major festival where both were supposed to perform.
Here’s the kicker: Authorities have not publicly identified YG as a suspect, announced any charges against him or explained what investigators expected to recover during the search. YG has repeatedly denied involvement in Drakeo’s death. On his June 2026 song “We Know the Truth,” he rejected allegations connecting him to the killing and said he learned after arriving to perform at the festival that someone had been stabbed. So while Cooper’s sworn deposition describes YG as actively brandishing a blade during the fight that killed Drakeo, law enforcement has never charged him. The murder case remains unsolved. No arrests have been made.
Attorneys representing Drakeo and his family filed a $20M lawsuit Monday against several music event promoters, including Live Nation, Bobby Dee Presents, and C3 Presents, alleging that the lack of security backstage led to the rapper’s stabbing. That lawsuit is where Cooper’s testimony surfaced. The fact that a documented eyewitness account is buried in civil court filings while the criminal case stays frozen is a tell. Drakeo’s family had to sue the promoters to get anyone to look back at what went down that night—and in doing so, they put on record a security guard’s detailed account of who had a weapon and how it was used.
The timing of this week’s SWAT search suggests someone in law enforcement is finally taking another look. But without an arrest, without charges, without public clarity on what they’re investigating, it feels incomplete. In the hip-hop world, when a young, innovative artist gets stabbed at a major festival and nobody gets held accountable for years, that’s a failure of the entire ecosystem—from law enforcement to venue security to the culture itself.
The 16BARS take: A security guard’s sworn testimony places YG with a blade in Drakeo’s fatal stabbing, yet five years later nobody’s arrested and the case is still cold. This week’s SWAT search had better mean something—because the culture doesn’t move on from this until somebody does time.
