Brooklyn-based, Philadelphia-raised MC and model Chynna Rogers has died at the age of 25, her manager John Miller confirms to Billboard.
“Chynna was deeply loved and will be sorely missed,” her family also tells Billboard in a statement.
A statement from her management team at True Panther reads: “Rest In Peace Chynna. Heartbroken. All the love to those she left behind. Goodbye angel.”
The cause of death has yet to be revealed.
Rogers got her break as a model, signing to Ford Models at the age of 14. Soon after, she became friends with A$AP Mob founder A$AP Yams and New York City awaited. It was the late Yams who gave Rogers the confidence to pursue a career in music.
“I tweeted them pictures I took at the show. I wanted to A&R and I was inspired by the way [A$AP Yams] went about molding Rocky’s career,” she told Billboard in 2017.
In the 2013, she enjoyed viral success with “Selfie,” followed by 2014’s “Glen Coco” and her I’m Not Here. This Isn’t Happening EP (a Radiohead reference), in July 2015.
The artist talked openly about her struggles with substance abuse and addressed her addiction with on the 2016 mixtape Ninety.
“I felt crazy. I didn’t want to be a statistic. I didn’t want to go out that way and people be like: ‘I told you so,” or glamorize it [drugs], because I don’t feel like that,” the The “Seasonal Depression” rapper told VIBE in 2018, several years after getting clean. “It was nerve-wracking to be open, but when you see how many more people who are dealing with the same thing, it’s good to have some kind of example of someone you didn’t expect to be going through it.”
Ninety was “very reflective of the time I had spent using,” she told Billboard in 2017. “A lot of it was written at the darkest times of my opiate use. I saw sides of myself that I otherwise would have never seen. They’re not sides that are particularly good, but sides that you need to see to know what you’re capable of. After I put it out, I got hit up a lot by kids and even other artists and homies who originally didn’t feel comfortable admitting they were going through the same things.”
Also in 2017, Rogers released her EP, Music 2 Die 2. Her last release, the EP in case i die first, dropped in January and was supported with a U.S. tour.
A$AP Mob led tributes to the young artist. “REST EASY CHYNNA. WE GON MISS U SIS,” reads a message from the hip-hop collective’s social accounts.
REST EASY CHYNNA. WE GON MISS U SIS. ❤️👼 pic.twitter.com/xcFdnhs030
— A$AP MOB (@ASAPMOB) April 9, 2020
chynna you were fuckin hilarious bro… today was our last exchange of jokes & those i will miss the most. i can’t believe it idk how to
i love you. so very much.
my heart is officially iced.
— Kehlani (@Kehlani) April 9, 2020