Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Nickelodeon Rapper Is In Prison For Murder - The Silento Story

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Rapper Richard Lamar "Ricky" Hawk, known professionally as Silento (famous for his 2015 hit "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)"), was sentenced in June 2025 to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty but mentally ill to voluntary manslaughter

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My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos. Watch the Hulu original series. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bumno subscribers. Terms apply. You know that rapper who wrote that whip-nay-nay song? You know, he's in prison now for murder?

And so the rapper's name is Salinto, and Salento is 17 when the story starts, living in Atlanta, and bro has had problems for a really long time. Like he's always in trouble going in and out of youth detention centers in his early teens. But despite all that, he's got big dreams. He really wants to be a famous rapper. So one day in 2015, he's in his high school in the cafeteria

when he randomly just gets up and starts dancing. And he notices that everyone's watching him because, of course they are. He's in the cafeteria dancing. Bro, sit your ass down and eat your food. And so he starts making up this little song. And you know the song. And watch me whip.

And watch me nai. And watch me mip and not a manor. Yeah, you get it. It's that song. And so he's dancing and he's singing this song and he's like, yo, this song I just made up is fire. And so he goes to a producer he knows and he begs him to help him record the song.

He's like, I know this is a hit. And the producer, he's not really feeling it. But Salento talks him into recording it. Once he gets it recorded, he titles it, Watch Me. And I know everyone calls it the Whip Nenay song, I do too, but it's actually called Watch Me. And so he starts performing Watch Me at school events and at kids' birthday parties,

and anywhere where people will let him perform it. And people go crazy for this song, especially young kids, because they like doing the little dance. And so then, he eventually, officially releases the song himself on SoundCloud. And it blows up immediately. Like within a few days, it's gotten over a million plays. People love it. And all this noise around this song gets the attention of Capitol Records. And so they reach out to him and they're like, we saw your song getting traction. We want to sign you. And just like that, Salento lands a record deal. And they

release a music video of the song on YouTube and kaboom. It blows the fuck up too. getting almost 2 billion views, 2 billion views on one video. And of course, the little kids are all reacting to the song, you know, they're all on YouTube, doing the dance. And of course, this catches on and it becomes like a full-on dance craze. You even got school choirs singing this shit. And so now, at just 17 years old, Salento is suddenly famous with a huge hit single. When just six months before, he was doing a little dance in his high school cafeteria, and now he has millions. of fans, he's traveling the world, he's making tons of money, he is on top of his game and

nothing can bring him down. Until, some time passes, and after the initial sudden wave of success of the Whip Neney song, Salento is having a lot of trouble replicating that success. And he doesn't want to fail, so he's putting a lot of pressure on himself. He keeps releasing new song after new song, but none of them come close to the success of Watch Me. And people start calling him a one-hit wonder. And that has got to be messing with his head. I mean, it was his first song and it was a massive hit.

But no one seems to care about anything else he puts out. And I imagine going from a completely unknown high schooler to a famous rapper in just six months is just too much for him. And he has, unfortunately, long had mental health issues. and his mental health issues combined with sudden pressures of fame do not mix well. And as time goes on, Salento starts to lose it. First, around 2017, he starts missing scheduled performances.

And this pisses promoters off and it starts to ruin his reputation as a professional. Then in 2020, he's around 22 years old now, he and his girlfriend get into an argument at their house. And allegedly, it gets bad, like really bad. because suddenly, bam, Salinto is arrested for domestic violence. Here's his mugshot. And from here, things keep getting worse. The very next day, Salinto is released, and he's wandering around a neighborhood looking for his girlfriend,

and he's carrying a hatchet. And he sees a random house, and for some reason, he thinks his girlfriend is inside that house. And so, boom, he breaks into this stranger's house holding a hatchet. And this house belongs to a family with a house, some kids and they're home and Salinto sees one of the homeowners and he suddenly starts screaming at them threatening them with the hatchet like you better tell me where she is or you'll get it. And this family of course is like what the f***? So they start screaming for help and other people

in the house hear this so they come running in from another room holding a gun and they pointed at Salento like get out and they get into a struggle with him until finally they're able to wrestle the hatchet away from him. Then out of nowhere One of Salento's friends runs into the house and is like, yo, bro, you got the wrong house. And Salinto's like, oh, shit, my bad. And he runs away while the homeowners call the police. And so, bam, police catch him and they arrest him.

Which, by the way, this means he was arrested two days in a row. But regardless, I guess he gets out on bail because two months later, one night he's driving in Atlanta. And he's speeding and he's swerving around cars, going 143 miles an hour, which is double the speed limit. And police finally pull him over. And he tries to be like, don't you know I'm famous? Roll down a window.

And we ain't did none wrong. You ain't did nothing wrong? You're doing 143. But I'm trying to figure out why are you doing 143? Because I get followed every where I go. But that gives you no right to be a due on 143. If it's like 10 cars following me, I can't do 100 for a thing because I'm not a regular person. And you can go look on your computer and it'll tell you that.

And I'm not lying to you. Have you been drinking tonight? No. Has anybody been drinking tonight? No. You just said you came from the club. And so anyway, they handcuff him and they take him to the station, but Slinto still has a lot to say. Somebody was following me, you can't do that.

Sir, calm down. Relax. You're not going to relax. Sir. You disrespected me when I told you a lot on. Sir, I'm spitting on me. I ain't spitting on you. You got to say.

Sir, I can't. You spit on me because I'm black. Is you recording, you recording with the government, how they use the satellite and they follow everywhere I go. Do you know about that? No, you don't. You don't know about how Donald Trump send me messages on my phone every day asking me to beg him to help him. You don't know about that, do you? No, you don't. No, you don't know about that. And so yeah, he seems to be having some kind of mental health episode. But anyway, bam, police arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And so Salinto is just not doing well. And his mental state appears to be getting worse and worse.

But here's where things get dark. And just so you know, we don't have most of the details of what happened, but I'll tell you what we do know. We know that one night in 2021, police respond to a report of a shooting inside a home. And when they arrive to the home, they find a man with multiple gunshot wounds to his legs and his face. That man happens to be Salento's cousin. And unfortunately, he doesn't make it. Now, a security camera showed a white BMW SUV fleeing the scene just like the one Salento was driving the night he got arrested for speeding. And pretty quickly, police confirmed that the BMW belongs to Salento. And so, bam, they arrest him.

Here's his mugshot. And from here, Salento admits to police that he did, in fact, shoot and kill his cousin. And so then he pleads guilty, so there is no trial, so we actually don't have a lot of the answers about what really happened that night. But at only 27 years old, Salento was sentenced to 30 years in prison.