Young Dolph is shot and killed at a Memphis bakery

Why it matters

Adolph Thornton Jr., who recorded as Young Dolph, was shot multiple times while standing inside Makeda's Homemade Cookies on Airways Boulevard in Memphis on November 17, 2021. He was 36. He had been inside the bakery buying cookies for his mother. Two men in a white Mercedes pulled up, fired through the storefront windows, and drove away. The case was solved within months. Justin Johnson ("Straight Drop") and Cornelius Smith were both arrested. Smith pled guilty in 2023 and testified against Johnson. Johnson was convicted of first-degree murder in September 2024 and sentenced to life without parole. Young Dolph had been the most prolific Memphis rapper of the late 2010s and early 2020s, the founder of Paper Route Empire, and one of the few independent-label MCs of his era to consistently chart on the Billboard 200 without a major-label distribution deal. The catalog he built is substantial. He had been working through his next album when he was killed. You can argue Memphis rap of the late 2010s ran through Dolph more than through any other figure. The argument has support. He was 36.