New Orleans rapper Lil Real One suffers fatal stabbing while shackled at Angola prison, family says

Brandon Guidry, a New Orleans rapper known as Lil Real One, died at age 41, after a reported stabbing Tuesday at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, according to his family.

Guidry was handcuffed and shackled when another incarcerated man stabbed him in the neck, family members were told on Wednesday, when they first heard about the attack from men incarcerated within the prison. 

Attempts by The Lens to verify the details of the deadly attack with prison officials were not immediately successful. His relatives had received no information from prison officials about the attack by the weekend, when they spoke with The Lens.

Guidry was reportedly being held on extended lockdown at Camp C and was not expected to be released from that status until December. Men on lockdown only receive one hour out of the cell each day, when they can spend time on the rec yard, shower, or make a phone call. 

Guidry’s death raises concerns about security at Angola. Prison procedure requires that men on extended lockdown be escorted by guards one at a time when going and returning from the yard. Unshackled men must maintain a certain distance from those who are handcuffed and shackled.

It’s unclear where correctional officers were positioned and how they responded to the attack.

For family members, even the most basic details are unknown. “Nobody from the prison called me and told me anything,” said Turiya Om Guidry, Brandon Guidry’s younger sister. She said that she was told by men held within Angola that her brother lost a lot of blood from his wound and that he was either driven by ambulance or airlifted by helicopter to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge, where he was pronounced dead on Friday. 

Brandon Guidry is survived by his sister Turiya along with his brother, Makonnen Guidry; two other sisters, Kyra Guidry and Iris Turner; and a niece, Ta’laiya Turner. The Guidry children’s mother, Florence Guidry died in July 2006, from injuries she suffered after being hit by a car. His father, William Bellinger, also passed away when Guidry was young.

Family Raises Questions Over Angola Prison Security

Callers from the prison told Guidry’s younger sister, Turiya Om Guidry, that the stabbing occurred on the prison yard. Other callers told Veedra “Rose” Tyson, whom he called mama, because she helped raise him after his mother died, that another incarcerated man came through a gate and stabbed Guidry in the neck with a sharp prisonmade weapon known as an icepick. Correctional officers were slow to respond to the attack, she heard. 

Turiya and Brandon were close. In the weeks before his death, he had complained to her about mistreatment by correctional officers. “He told me that the guards were picking on him,” she said.

Officers refused to provide him with soap, Guidry told his sister. He also feared that his food might be poisoned. He had previously complained about not receiving any medical treatment after a spider bite. 

“There was a lot going on,” said his sister, who noted that she had contacted prison officials in recent weeks seeking help. But she struggled to get answers. “I was calling, trying to see who I could talk to on behalf of him, but they would give me the runaround,” she said.

Guidry made similar complaints about guards to Tyson. That makes her suspicious. “We lost my baby because he was left vulnerable by a guard,” she notes. “How can you have an inmate on a yard who is shackled down, head to foot, and you allow somebody to get to him? I feel like there’s more to this story,” she said. 

“We’re just not getting a full picture,” said Kim Piper, who also took him under her wing as a young man, after he briefly dated her daughter. 

Lil Real One: His Music Career and Bond with Soulja Slim
Before his incarceration, Guidry was known in New Orleans for his rapping skills and his association with the late rapper Soulja Slim, who mentored the young man, who was eight years his junior, and dubbed him Lil Real One. He grew up in New Orleans East and attended Fannie C. Middle School and Sarah T. Reed High School, but didn’t graduate, his family said.

Guidry was signed to Soulja Slim’s record label Cut Throat Comitty Records and was expected to become the label’s first artist.

He identified with art and thought like an artist, his sister Turiya said, from the way he expressed himself and the way he dressed. “He could draw really well and write really well. And he understood the science of creating music. He could make beats, mix and master. He was a natural.”

But Soulja Slim’s killing in 2003 changed Guidry’s promising music career, leaving some of his ambitions on hold. “It changed the path my brother was going on,” his sister Turiya said. “It took a toll on him. He still wanted to do music, but I think he lost hope for a while.” Though he still recorded throughout the years, she said, it was difficult, because they had grown up in poverty and was a product of his environment in New Orleans East, she said.

Then in 2015, he was arrested on a murder charge. 

In 2017, in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, Judge Karen Herman sentenced him to life plus 50 years for the March 2015 murder of musician Bruce Tims and the attempted murder of another man, Anthony Joseph. The men had reportedly gotten into a dispute after Guidry felt as though a woman he knew had been mistreated in the Last Call Bar and Grill, which was located at 806 Conti Street, near Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. The incident was a tragedy and Guidry was apologetic for it, said his sister. “I think he completely regretted even going out there that night,” she said.

Despite his incarceration, Tyson said, Guidry continued looking for ways to challenge his 11-1 jury conviction and return home. “He would never stop,” she said. “He still was searching for a way to be a free man someday.”

His family’s memories of the young man they loved are also starkly different than his portrayal in the courthouse, they say. “Being a gangster rapper was not the totality of him as a person,” Turiya said. “He was very funny; his laugh gave you life. He was extremely kind and made people feel loved. He would wrap up plates of food and give them to people on the corner.” 

People have told her that Brandon gave them confidence, to pursue music or go to college. “Everyone wanted to hang with him, wanted to know him. His energy and his spirit were that big.”

She does not want to dismiss another family’s loss or justify his actions when he was wrong, she said. “My brother made a lot of mistakes as a man. But his heart was bigger than that. I don’t think he deserved to go out the way he did.”