Tim Dog, (aka Timothy Blair) the rapper from the Bronx who allegedly faked his death, is now confirmed dead. The backstory maintains that the rapper faked his own death in order to avoid paying the $19,000 he owed Mississippi single mom Esther Pilgrim, whom he defrauded, and the five years of probation that went along with the charge of grand larceny in 2011. Eight months later The Source, a culture magazine, released word online that the “F–ck Compton” rapper had died of a seizure caused by diabetes in 2013. A memorial service was held and a PayPal account was set up to benefit the rapper’s daughter. However, months after the memorial service for the forty-six year old, no death certificate had been produced, and a recording, “Falsified,” had surfaced online that purportedly featured the rapper’s vocals. Pilgrim, eager to receive the rest of the money owed her, pushed for a search to find Tim Dog. A Mississippi prosecutor even issued a warrant for Tim Dog’s arrest.
NBC’s Dateline team followed their noses to Fairburn, Georgia where, after several false leads to houses Tim Dog was supposedly living in with his wife and daughter, they started calling funeral homes in the area. It took this long to confirm his death because Atlanta Medical Center’s hospice department, where Tim Dog had been treated for his diabetes, was not allowed to release information on patients treated there. All the while, Tim Dog’s wife kept quiet, but also cancelled the PayPal account benefiting their daughter. So after calling funeral homes in the same zip code, NBC confirmed that Tim Dog died on February 14th, 2013 at Hospice Atlanta, Georgia and received his death certificate from the Dekalb County Georgia Board of Health, which you can view on NBC.com. The real trip for investigators was the fact that there was no paperwork filed in the county Tim Dog was supposedly living in, because death records are routinely filed in the county the death occurs, and the location of Tim Dog’s death was not public knowledge.
Tim Dog gained widespread recognition in 1991 when he released “F–ck Compton” from his debut album Penicillin on Wax, initiating a brief rap war. The track was a direct hit towards N.W.A., which lead Dr. Dre to retaliate on The Chronic with “F–k wit Dre Day” and “The $20 Sack Pyramid.” Post 1991, Tim Dog recorded two collaborative albums with Kool Keith and released three solo albums.