A rapper reportedly affiliated with Wu-Tang Clan has severed his own penis and jumped from a Los Angeles apartment building early Wednesday.
CNN reports, rapper Andre Johnson, who performs under the name Christ Bearer, was seriously injured, but survived the fall from the second level of the building in North Hollywood. He was found in a critical state on the pavement below and was rushed to the hospital.
Johnson has been a member of Northstar, a Long Beach, California, hip hop group that has been reported as part of the Wu-Tang Clan family. However, a publicist for Wu Tang Clan founding member GZA, Heathcliff Berru, told USA Today that Johnson is not directly involved with Wu-Tang Clan.
The Wu Tang Clan website contradicts this claim, when, in a bio of the Northstar group, it recounts how they were discovered by Wu-Tang’s RZA outside an L.A. radio station in 1998. The Wu-Tang producer took them on and provided beats for their 2004 debut, RZA Presents Northstar.
“RZA is the father to us in the game,” explains Christ Bearer on the website. “He gave birth to Northstar when other people in the West Coast really didn’t take on to us. RZA was the one that really took us on. He gave birth to us and now we’ve got a career by the grace of Allah.”
Details surrounding the incident are not yet known but members of his group, who live in the same building as Johnson told TMZ that they weren’t on “any hard drugs that would cause him to do such a thing”.
UPDATE 11:45am AEST 19/04/14: De facto Wu-Tang leader RZA has clarified Christ Bearer’s links to the group, and expressed his grief and frustration over the incident – more details here.
Anyone seeking support and information about suicide prevention can call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or contact Beyond Blue.
Watch: TMZ talks to witnesses
http://youtu.be/ShVu53XqxbU
Watch: Christ Bearer, Holocaust, Red Koolaid feat. Jocelyn – The Sting
