By: Bethania Palma
Published 4 April 2019
The 31 March 2019 murder of hip hop artist and community advocate Nipsey Hussle in Los Angeles has prompted some netizens to drudge up a baseless conspiracy theory about holistic doctor deaths and insinuate the rapper was assassinated as part of a wide-ranging cover-up plot sanctioned by the pharmaceutical, medical, and regulatory agencies.
Grammy award-nominated rapper Hussle (born Ermias Joseph Asghedom) was shot and killed while standing outside Marathon Clothing, a business he co-owned in South L.A. Police arrested 29-year-old Eric Holder on suspicion of committing what they believed to be a murder motivated by a personal dispute. (Holder has pleaded not guilty.)
Before his untimely death, the 33-year-old artist announced he was working on a documentary film about alternative health guru and traditional healer Alfredo Bowman, also known as Dr. Sebi, who died in 2016 from pneumonia while in custody of Honduran authorities after being arrested on money-laundering charges. Sebi was 82 at the time of his death.
Hussle’s killing appears to be totally unrelated to his work on the documentary film about Dr. Sebi. At a 2 April 2019 press conference, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said that Hussle and the suspect knew each other, and that “we believe this to be a dispute between Mr. Hussle and Mr. Holder. I’m not going to go into the conversations but it appears to be a personal matter between the two of them in regards to a dispute, and I’ll leave it at that.”
Moore said the suspect approached Hussle, who was standing outside the clothing store with two other people, and exchanged words. He returned multiple times before opening fire, injuring the other persons while fatally wounding Hussle.
Deaths of holistic doctors and anything tangentially related to them have become fodder for a wide-ranging conspiracy theory that contends a plot is afoot to silence them before their unconventional cures kneecap the pharmaceutical industry. Hussle’s work on the documentary about Sebi thus served as a segue for the conspiracy-minded to link the two events without evidence:
