Silentó

Richard Lamar "Ricky" Hawk^[1] was born on January 23, 1998^[2] in Stone Mountain, Georgia.^[3] He has stated that he was born with multiple drugs found in his system, including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, and that he grew up seeing his family members attempting to kill one another and talking to walls.^[4] At age 14, he lived with his great aunt and was soon placed in a juvenile detention center.^[5] He was raised in Atlanta, where he began performing music as part of a group while in eighth grade before making solo music as a high schooler.^[6] Hawk chose the stage name Silentó based on his achieving his goals being "less talk and more action".^[7]

Prompted by losing a high school talent show, Hawk independently released his debut single, "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)", as Silentó on SoundCloud in January 2015.^[7] It was based on previous hip hop dance trends including the whip, the Nae Nae, the Stanky Legg, and the Superman. He promoted it on his Instagram and SoundCloud accounts and by performing it at local birthday parties, school events, and roller rinks.^[3] The digital distribution network TuneCore soon helped to promote the song through an April 2015 partnership with DanceOn, a dance-based multi-channel network on YouTube that paid its partner channels through Content ID to make videos set to the song with the hashtag #WatchMeDanceOn.^[8] User-generated videos on both YouTube and Vine then made the song a dance craze and brought it to viral success by June 2015. It peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100, where it spent 53 weeks, and was certified 6× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It also topped Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart in September 2015.^[9] A&R executive Alex Wilhelm signed Silentó to Capitol Records in May 2015.^[10][11]

In June 2015, Silentó performed "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)" on the ABC program Good Morning America, which he described as his breakout moment, in conjunction with the release of the song's accompanying music video.^[3][6] It had over 500 million views by December of that year; by 2020, it was one of the most-viewed hip hop music videos on YouTube with 1.7 billion views.^[1] Also in June 2015, Silentó performed at the BET Awards alongside the cast of the show Black-ish.^[12] He later performed the song in December 2016 in Times Square for Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest.^[13]

Silentó won the World Collaboration Award at the 26th Seoul Music Awards for his song "Spotlight" with Korean singer Punch, where he performed "Spotlight" and "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)".^[14] In March 2017, after failing to appear at two of his scheduled performances in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—one in Al Ain and another in Abu Dhabi—the city of Al Ain placed a travel ban on Silentó, ordering him to forfeit his passport and barring him from leaving the UAE until he paid the shows' promoter 300 thousand dirhams in lost fees. He soon posted a crowdfunding link to his Twitter for his return to the United States titled "Free Silento".^[15] Silentó's debut studio album, Fresh Outta High School, was released in August 2018, while its follow-up, Fresh Outta High School, Pt. 2, was released five months later.^[16] Steve "Flash" Juon of RapReviews wrote in a review of Fresh Outta High School that the album "unintentionally feels like a slow descent into madness".^[17]

In May 2019, Silentó appeared on the daytime talk show The Doctors to discuss his adverse childhood experiences and his resulting anxiety and depression. According to Chanel Hudson, his publicist at the time, he was scheduled to make subsequent appearances on other television shows and partake in further therapy sessions but did not attend either. She also stated that he attempted suicide in 2020.^[4]

In August 2020, Silentó was arrested by the Santa Ana Police Department and taken into custody by the Orange County Sheriff's Department on a charge of inflicting injury on a cohabitant, then released.^[18] The next day, he entered a random home in Valley Village, Los Angeles, wielding a hatchet in search of his girlfriend, before his friend came to inform him he was at the wrong house. He was disarmed by the family in the home, arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department, and charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.^[1]

Silentó was then arrested in Atlanta and charged with speeding, reckless driving, parking in a prohibited space, and driving on roadways laned for traffic in October 2020 after driving at 143 miles per hour (230 km/h) on Interstate 85, where the speed limit was 65 miles per hour (105 km/h), and telling officers that he was able to drive that quickly because he was "not a regular person". He was released later that day.^[19][20]

At around 3:30 a.m. on January 21, 2021 in DeKalb County, Georgia, Silentó's 34-year-old cousin, Frederick Rooks, was found bleeding profusely by police, with gunshot wounds in his face and leg, before dying. Silentó was arrested in connection with the shooting and charged with malice murder and felony murder.^[21][22] Silentó's grandparents asked the judge to deny his $25,000 bail request.^[23]

Silentó stated in 2015 that his style, which he described as a mix of rapping and singing, was defined by the lack of profanity in his songs.^[7] Although he backtracked on this idea with his later songs. He has named his biggest musical influences as Mariah Carey, Future, Ciara, and Usher.^[6]