Twisted rap lyrics have been posted online mocking the death of 14-year-old stabbing victim Kelyan Bokassa.
They boast about hunting the schoolboy down and how he’s ‘now sitting’ there stiff’ after he was knifed to death on Tuesday in broad daylight on the number 472 London double-decker bus in Woolwich.
Among the heartfelt tributes for Keylan, the cruel verse says: ‘Caught Grippa lackin’ on the 472. Blade in my coat, yeah, it’s do or die (do or die).
‘He tried jumpin’ off, but the doors don’t slide (hah). Now he’s sittin’ there stiff with the fear in his eyes.’
Described by his mother as a polite young boy who had been groomed by gangs, Kelyan was an aspiring drill rapper and performed under the name ‘Grippa’.
He recently released a song on Christmas Day called ‘Bangers and Mash’ in which he pretends to wave a knife and raps: ‘I’m the shortest shooter on my block but I still roll with the longest ting’.
Terrified witnesses told of seeing two baby-faced young men sprinting from the atrocity, one armed with a machete ‘as long as your forearm’.
Detectives on Tuesday were said to be ‘working at pace’ to track down the knifeman, but more than 48 hours later Scotland Yard is yet to make any arrests.
Kelyan Bokassa, 14, was an aspiring musician, who filmed videos under the street name ‘Grippa’
Kelyan is pictured with his mother, Mary, during a trip to the beach as a young boy
An image from the scene after Kelyan was stabbed to death on a bus in Woolwich
It is feared Kelyan was killed amidst an ugly postcode turf war between rival gangs, with his death coming months after his close friend Daejaun Campbell, 15, was stabbed to death by a zombie knife-wielding assassin.
Three teenagers, Jacob Losiewicz, 18, Marko Balaz, also 18 and a 17-year-old youth have been charged with Daejaun’s murder.
Around an hour before he was killed, the Kelyan posted a haunting message on Instagram asking any of his followers if they had a ‘mindi’ – the Somali word for knife.
His grieving mother, Mary, 50 tearfully told MaiOnline on Wednesday how she feared her son had been’groomed’ and ‘taken advantage [of] by gangs’.
Speaking from her home in south east London, she said: ‘He was missing for a year and was living on the street.
‘He finally turned up at my doorstep, he was sick, underweight and tattooed… He was exposed to drugs. He probably experienced something because I could sense it.’
Speaking of her son, Ms Bokassa added: ‘He was not himself. If I questioned him he wouldn’t tell me anything about his friends.
‘We had to chase him at night, he was in the Stratford area. We said to him we are here when you are ready to come home, it was at 1am.
Pictured is Kelyan’s heartbroken mother, Mary Bokassa holding a picture of her son
A forensic officer is seen holding a weapons tube used to collect evidence while on board the bus – January 7, 2025
Tributes have poured in for the young musician named ‘Grippa’ with devastated friends on social media saying he was ‘taken too soon’
Before Kelyan was knifed to death he posted on Instagram, asking if any of his followers had a ‘mindy’. This is believed to be in reference to the word ‘mindi’, which is Somalian for ‘knife’
Two police officers stand in front of a police cordon on Woolwich Church Road where the teenager was stabbed to death on Tuesday
Police guard a cordon after a teenager was fatally stabbed on a London bus on Tuesday, January 7, 2025
‘I don’t know what he was doing or who he was with. He wouldn’t tell me. He got angry when I asked him.’
‘He got himself in trouble with the law at that time.
‘There were eight police officers who were forcing him to go back to care. He was just bones.’
She said Kelyan had been sent to live with a Caribbean family but that after two years he was moved to Ocean Haven Children’s Home, in Deal, Kent.
But she claimed the troubled teen kept running away.
‘He lived on the streets for a year after he ran away from the children’s home,’ she added. ‘But when he came home, he wrote graffiti on the balcony to say he loved me.’
Kelyan is said to have been on his way to Woolwich Town Hall to see his social worker on what was his first day back at school when he was stabbed to death.
On the notorious Barnfield estate where Keylan lived with his mother, the Wildbatch gang operates. An area to the south, close to Woolwich Dockyard is controlled by their bitter rivals the WoolyO gang.
Both gangs are said to be vying for control over the local drugs trade – particularly crack-cocaine and cannabis – and have both formed alliances with gangsters from nearby areas.
On Friday, Kelyan was due to appear before magistrates accused of carrying a machete into Ravensbourne College. In his latest brush with the law, he was charged with charged with possession of a weapon in a public place.