Saucy Santana, the stage name of the rapper, reality television star, and former makeup artist Rashad Jamiyl Spain, was born Oct. 8, 1993, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
His makeup career included working his magic on hip-hop duo City Girls (as per Nylon), which played a significant part in his entry into the performing industry. In 2019, he released his first single, “Walk Em Like A Dog,” and has since released the 2019 EP Dog Walkers, the 2021 studio album Keep It Playa, four mixtapes, 22 singles as the lead artist, and four singles as a featured artist.
Artists he’s collaborated with include Latto, LightSkinKeisha, Tay Money, R3hab, Flo Milli, Sukihana, RealXman, IDK, Jucee Froot, Khadijah, former clients City Girls, and the Queen of Pop herself, Madonna. It was his single, “Material Gworrllllllll!,” on which Madonna featured, that gave him his biggest hit (it reached 69 on the UK Singles Downloads Chart).
Saucy Santana’s television career began as a recurring guest star on the reality television franchise Love & Hip Hop: Miami.
However, in 2019, his budding career was almost brought to an abrupt and violent halt. So what happened?
What happened in 2019?
As per WPLG, on Dec. 11, 2019, Saucy Santana was one of three people shot in a drive-by shooting after leaving The Office, a strip club located on Miami Gardens Drive, in the early hours of the morning.
He was hit in the arm by a single bullet and was hospitalized for his injuries. He told NBC, “I’m lucky, blessed to be alive. I got shot in the top of my shoulder, you was aiming at my face or at my head, that’s an instant kill.”
According to UPROXX, the rapper believes the shooting was motivated by homophobia due to his gender-bending image and the raunchy, obviously queer lyrics in his songs. He was subsequently inspired to write the song “You Can’t Kill Me.”
Fortunately, he’s live to tell the tale, and you can now see Saucy Santana as part of the main cast on Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta.