Brandon Duncan, aka Tiny Doo, is a rapper known to write lyrics about gang activities on albums like No Safety. In 2008, he was charged with pimping, with local police linking him to the Lincoln Park Bloods street gang that once featured another local rapper, Mitchy Slick. “Yeah, we worked together,” Duncan told the Reader in 2014. “He took me under his wing and I was on his label when I started about seven years ago. I left when we had creative differences.”
In November 2014, Duncan was arrested on an attempted murder charge and implicated in nine California shootings said to be inspired by or related to his lyrics, mostly regarding the Lincoln Park gang. The charges include allegations that he benefited off the violent actions of fellow gang members.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Duncan told the Reader. “Nobody in their right mind would submit themselves to 25-years-to-life in prison in order to achieve any kind of fame.” A motion was made to dismiss the conspiracy charges in January 2015, but a judge refused to dismiss all charges, saying he lacked jurisdiction. By March, however, all of the charges against Duncan were indeed dismissed.
In January 2017, Duncan and community organizer and activist Aaron Harvey filed a federal civil rights violations lawsuit against the city of San Diego over the gang conspiracy law that resulted in Duncan's arrest.