Profanity Headstone For Rapper Rejected, No F-Bombs Allowed

A profane headstone will not be permitted on the site of a 23-year-old rapper’s grave. This week, Pine Grove Cemetery officials in Lynn, Massachusetts handed down a decision that they won’t allow Sonny Santiago’s headstone to be inscribed with a lyric that they said was offensive.

Rapper Sonny Santiago died in a car accident in February.

But the cemetery commissioners only recently received a description of the language planned for the 3-foot-tall memorial from the stone engravers.

According to a local Lynn news source, The Daily Item, the planned inscription was going to read like this:

“You gonna remember the d**n name, I give a f**k if I die with no d**n friends, I got my fam by my side and that’s until the end.”

The six-member panel voted unanimously to ban the defiant inscription. Sister-in-law Angela Ventola said that the family has been informed and that they’ve already picked a different, profanity-free lyric from Santiago’s work for his headstone.

The new design will be black granite carved in the shape of the numeral one. Uno is, of course, Spanish for the number one, and it was also Santiago’s rapper name.

The current grave site is also the source of controversy between Santiago’s survivors and the Pine Grove Cemetery authorities.

While awaiting the permanent headstone, the family has created a design out of white stone and red mulch that reads “1 LOVE.” The panel ruled that this informal display doesn’t conform with cemetery rules either, and they have sent a letter demanding that the family remove it within two weeks.

Apparently, rules are rules, even if you’re dead. You can’t interfere with the ease of operation of the lawn maintenance equipment. And you can’t drop the f-word on a profane headstone.

[headstone waiting to be carved photo by Barry Blackburn via Shutterstock]