How Takeoff, his uncle Quavo and cousin Offset, formed Migos

The news of the death of rapper Takeoff has shocked the hip-hop world. His immediate family holds him over a pool of blood after he was shot in the ‘head or neck’ in a dispute over ‘a dice game‘ this morning.

His desperate last moments came after an incredible family story in which the three Migos, who grew up together in the mid-2000s, would go from leaving Berkmar High School to building a $26 million fortune.

Born Kirshnik Khari Ball on June 18, 1994, Takeoff never knew his father, who left when he was a child. His earliest memories are of his uncle Quavo, born Quavious Keyate Marshall, and his cousin Offset, or Kiari Kendrell Cephus.

Before the rap trio made records together, they were a family, with the three members growing up under one roof in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

The family moved across Georgia from Athens to Gwinett when Takeoff was in elementary school and Quavo, who is three years older than his cousin and a year older than his cousin, was in high school.

After the move, all three of them went to live under the roof of Quavo’s mother, Latabia Woodward, who worked as a hairdresser to care for the three boys.

‘I don’t look at’ [Quavo] like my uncle, but more like my brother. But we’ve always fooled each other,” Takeoff explained in an interview with the fader in 2013. ‘He’s my uncle, so I have to make fun of him. You must be funny.’

From seventh grade, Takeoff was the one who wanted to take rapping seriously. He approached his uncle in 2009 about forming the group that would become Migos.

The trio of rhyming words formed the Polo Club and dropped their first mixtape, Juung Season, in 2011, when Quavo was in 10th grade. They would later rebrand as Migos.

Described as monotonous in interviews, Takeoff’s voice came alive in the studio booth – a memory of him that remains sharpest after his dead on 1 Nov.

Offset, who Quavo described as “the most different,” was never one to grow out his dreadlocks like the other two, cutting them off when they got too long.

“Offset is fam. He’s been with us since sixth grade,” Quavo said. “We had him rap in high school.”

At the time of his death, Takeoff had been growing out his dreads for years. His mother – Quavo’s older sister – was always his hairdresser.

“He likes to work and mind his business,” his mother said of her son when fans tracked down her Twitter account in 2018. Sandra Rose. “He doesn’t like to be busy with a lot of things, he just likes to make good music for the people.”

But it was Atlanta where the group sowed the seeds that grew their fame. They described back-to-back nights with DJs, constantly rotating songs so that their music and faces were recognized.

The trio would go through about seven songs a day on a relentless schedule, even leaving homework for each other before a session started.

“You have to have fun with a song, make someone laugh,” Takeoff said. ‘You have to have character. A hard punch can make you laugh, but you have to know how to say it.’

Takeoff was known as the quietest member of the band, interviews are rarely given.

He has kept any love interests a secret, apart from the time stripper London Dallaz posted a picture of them in bed together.

Migos have a fifteen minute rule where they stop the performance there and there before playing to see how it sounds.

“When you drop a song and wake up in the morning and hear the song you dropped last night, that’s the best feeling. The song will tell you then,’ said Quavo.

Their first breakthrough came in 2013 with Versace, a track that was subsequently remixed by Drake, bringing their first full-length album YRN to the spotlight a few years later.

Justin Bieber posted a short video of him rapping, which skyrocketed their popularity.

The group has since become regulars on the hip-hop scene, collaborating with high-profile artists like Drake, Katy Perry and Cardi B – whom Offset went on to marry.

But the group never forgot family. In 2017, Takeoff and Quavo bought a house for Quavo’s mother Edna Marshall, according to XXL Mag.

ME and Take Jus bought mom a house!!! The great road!!!’ Quavo tweeted at the time.

But Migos was not without problems. Offset was incarcerated in Georgia’s DeKalb County Jail for violating his probation received as a result of previous convictions for burglary and robbery in 2013.

A series of legal issues plagued the trio as time went on. Offset was arrested in Atlanta in 2016 for driving with a suspended license, while Takeoff was asked to leave a flight from Atlanta to Des Moines a year later, and the Washington Avenue Armory in Albany sued the group for allegedly inciting riots. during a performance where six people were stabbed.

Around this time, Takeoff began working on his own solo projects, according to his mother. The three Migos finally drifted apart.

Rumors of a breakup were sparked when Takeoff was absent from an AMAs award for Favorite Duo/Group in the Pop/Rock category in 2018.

In the same year, Takeoff’s launched his first solo project called The Last Rocket.

As the years went on, Quavo seemed most likely to launch a solo career when he was featured on DJ Khaled’s “No Brainer.”

In May 2022, Offset and Cardi B unfollowed the other members of the group on Instagram.

Offset was preparing to drop his second studio album on November 11, when news of Takeoffs’ death on November 1 broke the headlines.

Despite the rumors, the group remained close to each other even when they worked on their own projects.

“We’re always family, that won’t change,” Takeoff told the Big Facts Podcast a month before the shooting.

The last Migos album, Culture III, was released in June 2021. It will be their last as a trio.