Pa Salieu has been sentenced to 33 months in prison. BBC News reports that the British rapper had been convicted of violent disorder and possessing a bottle as an offensive weapon, stemming from an incident in 2018 when he was 21. He was cleared of a second count of violent disorder.
Prosecutors said Salieu participated in a fight that occurred outside a nightclub in his hometown of Coventry, England, after Salieu’s friend Fidel “AP” Glasgow — who was also the grandson of The Specials’ Neville Staple — was stabbed to death at age 21. During the fight, Salieu reportedly used a bottle and a tree branch to attack a 23-year-old man, who spent 10 days in the hospital as a result.
Salieu, who admitted to smashing and brandishing the bottle to use for defense, was one of nine men charged in connection with the fight. No one has been charged with Glasgow’s murder, which police are still investigating. Per The Guardian, Salieu’s lawyer, Jonathan Woodcock, asked for a suspended sentence and said there was a “realistic prospect of rehabilitation.”
Salieu was nominated for the Rising Star Award at the 2021 BRITs, following the success of his breakout 2020 mixtape Send Them to Coventry. Last year, he shared the EP Afrikan Rebel. Outside of his own music, he’s been featured on songs by Mura Masa, FKA twigs, Slowthai, and more.
:quality(85):upscale()/2023/05/11/976/n/1922564/782262e2645d6b967847b4.74342194_.png)
