Adolph Robert Thornton Jr., who was professionally known as Young Dolph was an American rapper and songwriter. He significantly rose to fame with the release of his first studio album titled “King of Memphis” which ranked at number 49 on the Billboard 200 chart.
In this article, we will cover Dolph’s net worth, personal life, early life, career, and others.
Young Dolph’s Net Worth
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Young Dolph had an estimated net worth of $3 million at the time of his demise.
Early Life
Young Dolph was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 27, 1985. At the age of 2, the family relocated to Memphis, Tennessee. He had four siblings, two brothers, and two sisters.
His grandmother brought him up majorly since his parents were crack cocaine addicts and he saw his parents every few weeks when he was young. He went to Hamilton High School.
Personal Life
Young Dolph was in a relationship with Mia Jaye and the couple had two kids together, Tre Tre and Aria.
In September 2017, he was shot outside a retail store in Hollywood, Los Angeles and later he was rushed to hospital in critical health condition but he managed to survive. He suffered 3 gunshot wounds and took 2 weeks to recover.
In 2020, amidst the coronavirus pandemic, he started living with his family in Memphis more often and did so while rumors of retirement were circulating over the internet.
Dolph was popular for his philanthropy, donated $25,000 to his alma mater, Hamilton High School, and used to give inspirational speeches to students he was also popular for distributing Thanksgiving dinners, he distributed 200 turkeys to individuals at the West Cancer Center days prior to his demise and was slated to give away more meals a few days later.
Career
Dolph’s first mixtape titled Paper Route Campaign was released in 2008 and after two years, in 2010, he founded his label titled Paper Route Empire officially, it was an independent label without any association with any major label, and in the same year, Welcome 2 Dolph World was released. His popularity started increasing with the release of 2011 mixtapes “High-Class Street Music” and “High-Class Street Music Episode 2”.
In August 2014, he received a record deal with Yo Gotti’s Collective Music Group label Memphis rapper Yo Gotti, however, he didn’t accept the offer and chose to remain independent.
In 2017, his first album titled King of Memphis was released under his label and it ranked at number 49 on the Billboard 200. The title of the album offended other Memphis rappers along with Yo Gotti and Blac Youngsta and in response, a diss track titled “SHAKE SUM (Young Dolph Diss)” was released.
Young Dolph released a diss track in the next year against Yo Gotti named “Play Wit Yo’ Bitch”. Both of them then released a couple of more response tracks and the next day after the music video for “Play Wit Yo’ Bitch” was released, his own vehicle became the target of gunfire in Charlotte, North Carolina when he was in town to perform at the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association tournament.
Allegedly, he was shot one hundred times, however, since the bulletproof panels were installed in it, no one suffered injuries. The publicity from the shooting was utilized for the promotion of his second studio album titled “Bulletproof” and in the same year, Young Dolph was shot several times.
In 2017, Key Glock was signed by Young Dolph, and the next year, they’re single entitled “Major” was released which debuted at number 47 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. He received a $22 million record deal which was really good but he still declined.
Thereafter, he confirmed that Empire Distribution offered him a record deal that he accepted, and the album titled Role Model became the first one to release under a joint venture between Paper Route Empire and Empire Distribution.
Young Dolph then released the album titled Dum and Dummer in collaboration with Key Glock in July 2019 which ranked at number 8 on the Billboard 200 becoming his first top 10 albums.
In early 2020, the rumors about his retirement started circulating since he started appearing more often in Memphis. According to reports, the reason behind this was he wanted to spend more time with his kids. Young Dolph took to his Instagram handle writing: “Highly considering quitting the music business because I really wanna be with my kids 24/7”.
He released the single “Sunshine” during the coronavirus pandemic and in May 2020, during a conversation with GQ, when he was questioned about the release of his latest single, he said “Man, my little boy wanted to hear some new music. … I’ll keep it real: I ain’t really been on my rapper shit, I been on my industry shit, the big bro shit.
I got a lot of artists, and I been dropping all my artists’ projects, and they going up. … So I’m like, ‘Yeah, I gotta go ahead and give it to them.’ I gotta drop it.”
In August 2020, he released his seventh album entitled Rich Slave which peaked at number 4 on the Billboard 200 making it the highest-charting album of him.
In March 2021, his single titled “Aspen” was released in collaboration with Key Glock.
Death
Young Dolph was shot in Memphis when he was picking up cookies for his mother at Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies, a bakery where he used to go quite often whenever he was back home. Two gunmen arrived in a white Mercedes-Benz and shot him down.
Later, it was confirmed in an autopsy that he was shot 22 times. On Tuesday, November 30, 2021, he was laid to rest.
In January 2022, police found one of the suspects involved in the killing as 23-year-old Justin Johnson and released a first-degree murder warrant.
Later, on January 11, another suspect, 32-year-old Cornelius Smith was accused of first-degree murder, weapons possession, and theft charges, and the next day, both of them were charged with first-degree murder and other criminal charges. However, On February 11, both Johnson and Smith pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
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