Leo DaVincci, a rapper, producer, and music mentor to teens who worked with Guitars Over Guns, died on September 4 after a long illness.
Born Leonardo Mayorga in Nicaragua in 1982, his mother moved him to Miami when he was less than a year old. It wasn’t long after that that he fell in love with hip-hop. “At age six, he was listening to 2 Live Crew,” his cousin Carlos Martinez reminisced to New Times. In middle school, Leo was already rapping, writing lyrics, and finding other people with his interests.”
In 2008, he started Mami Beat Crew, a local hip-hop collective. Fellow Crew member Chip Williams remembers Leo Davincci as a “great musician of music that wasn’t fake. He didn’t rap about killing people or selling drugs. He talked about real things. He was a great beat maker. And a producer in the truest sense of the word, in that he brought people together.”…