Three Michigan rappers have been missing for 10 days since they were forced to suddenly cancel a show at a Detroit club, officials said.
Armani Kelly, Montoya Givens and Dante Wicker — who met each other in prison — were scheduled to perform at a party at the Lounge 31 bar in Motor City on Jan. 31 but their appearance was scrapped due to equipment failure. The three have not been seen or heard from since that night as multiple agencies have begun investigating.
“We just have a whole lot of unanswered questions that we’re trying to find the answer to,” Detroit Police Cmdr. Michael McGinnis told reporters on Monday. “The fact that the three of them are missing together is very concerning and very alarming for us.”
Kelly, 27, left his home in Oscoda, Michigan around 11 a.m. on Jan. 21 in a gray Chevrolet Equinox, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database. He called family members around 5 p.m. when he arrived in Detroit — about 200 miles south of Oscoda — and said his show had been canceled.
Kelly told his family he was going to find another place to perform or visit with friends, according to the profile. Givens and Wicker were not yet listed on the NamUS database, however, Detroit Police Department confirmed to NBC News that missing person reports had been filed for both of them.
Lorrie Kemp, Kelly’s mother, filed a report the morning after his scheduled performance. She tracked down his truck with the vehicle’s tracking service to an apartment complex in Warren — about 15 miles north of Detroit. She canvassed the area herself and handed out flyers on Gratiot Street where Loung 31 is located.
According to Kemp, Kelly had picked up the other two men before the concert.
“It breaks my heart. I talked to Dante’s mother and girlfriend and do you know how guilty I feel that my son picked up these other two young men?” Kemp told WDIV.
The distressed mother has already accepted that she may never again see her son, whom she said was turning his life around and taking classes at a local community college.
“I wanna lay him to rest and try to move on,” Kemp concluded.
McGinnis said none of the men’s phones show any activity from the morning of Jan. 22. It remains unclear whether the three even made it to the bar.
“We just have a whole lot of unanswered questions that we’re trying to find out finding answers for so we can find these victims — or these individuals and we don’t know that they’re victims,” McGinnis said. “We want to find them and get them home to their loved ones.”
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