Takeoff

As the youngest participant in the trap-defining trio Migos, Takeoff contributed to the streaming dominance of “Versace” and “Bad and Boujee,” while the group’s second studio album, Culture, reached the summit of the pop charts in both the United States and Canada during 2017. Beyond those collective achievements, he issued his first solo album, The Last Rocket, in 2018 and, four years later, joined Rich the Kid on the single “Crypto.” That same year he and fellow Migos member Quavo released the full-length project Only Built for Infinity Links. On November 1, 2022, he was fatally shot in Houston.

Born Kirshnik Khari Ball on June 18, 1994, in Lawrenceville, Georgia, he formed Migos in 2009 alongside relatives Quavo and Offset, hoping to break free from entrenched poverty and crime. The group’s breakthrough arrived with the 2013 single “Versace,” followed by the 2015 album Yung Rich Nation and then Culture two years afterward. Takeoff’s absence from the 2016 lead single “Bad and Boujee” sparked brief online debate; he later explained that scheduling conflicts had simply kept him from the session. His first independent track, “Intruder,” appeared in May 2017. He also surfaced as a guest on recordings by Jose Guapo, Chill Will, and, most prominently, Calvin Harris, whose 2017 album Funk Wav Bounces, Vol. 1 included the track “Holiday.”

Migos returned in January 2018 with the twenty-four-song set Culture II. Later that November, Takeoff delivered The Last Rocket, which entered the upper reaches of both the Billboard 200 and the R&B/hip-hop chart. Subsequent guest spots included the 2020 singles “Too Blessed” with Rich the Kid and “All Time High” alongside YRN Lingo. In 2022 he reunited with Rich the Kid for the track “Crypto,” then issued Only Built for Infinity Links with Quavo in October. Less than a month afterward, on November 1, he was killed at age twenty-eight inside a Houston bowling alley.