Who Is Kodak Black? New Details About The Rapper Who Helped Save A Woman When Her Car Flipped Over
Her car had flipped.
Instagram Rapper Kodak Black is making headlines for helping a woman who was in a car crash in South Florida.
On March 6, the rapper went live on Instagram to videotape a car on it's side in the grass, The female driver was standing up inside the car with her upper-body emerging from one of the vehicle's side windows. Kodak, who is a native of Pompano Beach, pulled over to check on her.
“Damn y’all, s--- crazy,” he said on the video. “Y’all see this s---, man? And they’re playing my music on the radio. Damn, dog! Somebody just flipped over dog! Look at this lady, man.”
“You alright? You OK? Want me to help you?” he asked the woman. When he walked over to her vehicle, the woman apparently recognized the rapper.
"Are you Kodak," she asked.
"Yeah, I'm Kodak," he responded. “I just wanted to see if you’re straight."
While it's not 100 percent clear how the car got into the accident, it appeared to have flipped over on a highway entrance or exit. In the video, someone is encouraging the driver to call 911, but she pleads with them not to. Kodak — who has had his own run-ins with the law — trusted that the people there were fine and could handle the next steps, so he left.
Now the video of the rapper is making its way around social media, with many of his fans describing him as a "neighborhood hero." So who is Kodak Black? Here's everything we know.
1. He's a native from the area where the crash happened.
Kodak — who was born Dieuson Octave on June 11, 1997 — was born and raised in Pompano Beach, Florida. His parents are migrants from Haiti and raised him in Gold Acres, a public housing project in the city.
From the age of 6, he started going by the nickname "Black" and "Lil Black."
"Well, everybody, they used to just call me Lil’ Black," he said in an interview. "When I was six, I used to run around and they’d call me Black, and then, when Instagram came out I chose “Kodak Black.” When I started rapping, they liked that name better. When I was just ‘Black,’ that was simple, that was original, and the name, it makes itself. Just cuz I say ‘Kodak Black’ people search my name up, like ‘what does that mean, Kodak Black?’ It’s a long name, you wanna know what I’m talking about."
But it wasn't until he started his Instagram account that he called himself "Kodak Black." The reason?
"'Cause you know Kodak, that's pictures and all that."
2. He started rapping in elementary school.
Kodak started his musical career in elementary school. He would go to a local trap house to record music after school and even started using thesauruses and dictionaries to increase his vocabulary and help his rapping.
"After school, me and all my little young homeboys, we used to rap and try to show off for all the older boys," he said. "The older boys, they were like, 15. I wasn’t scared to rap. Go in there and bust a rap."
3. He's had some run-ins with the law.
Kodak is no stranger to the police. When he was a kid, he frequently got into fights and would break into places with friends. In middle school, he was arrested for auto theft with left him his first punishable-by-life charge. He was placed into a youth detention center three times.
In 2015, he was arrested in Pompano Beach for robbery, battery, false imprisonment of a child and possession of cannabis, but he was later released. He didn't comment directly on those charges but did speak to The Fader about his brushes with the law.
“I kept a clean heart through everything, and my intentions wasn’t bad,” he said. “I didn’t just freestyle it. At the end, it’s about bread.”
4. He was accused and charged with sexual assault.
In 2016, Kodak was released from jail in Florida for two misdemeanor drug charges and was immediately transported to South Carolina to face charges of sexual assault. The female victim reported the incident to her school nurse and said that after attended Black's concert, she went back to his hotel room.
It was there that he told her he "couldn't help himself," tore off her clothes and proceeded to bite her repeatedly and rape her as she screamed for help. In 2017, he was indicted by a grand jury and is set to go to trial for a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in April of 2019.
5. He's done controversial things on Instagram.
In 2017, Kodak went live on Instagram and showed a woman performing oral sex on him and several other men in a Washington D.C. hotel room. He later posted a message about the incident on Twitter.
"If I could change I swear I would .. I tried everything but I'm just so hood."
And in January of 2018, he was arrested on multiple charges after he went live on Instagram and show himself passing marijuana and gun around a small child. Three of the charges were dropped, and Kodak pleaded not guilty to the other two.
Eventually, he was sentenced to 364 days in prison for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of marijuana but was given credit for time served. He was released in August of 2018.
Emily Blackwood is a writer and editor living in California. She covers all things news, pop culture and true crime.