By Victor Trammell
The proprietors of Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies believe the community must band together for change in their first interview since Memphis rapper Adolph “Young Dolph” Thornton, Jr. was killed recently at their bakery.
Maurice and Pamela Hill expressed their worries about the community from their new factory downtown, after the closure of their flagship shop on Airways Boulevard, where fans had erected a tribute for the rapper.
The couple has been married for 23 years. They said their first thoughts are with Dolph’s high school girlfriend and two surviving children.
“Losing his life buying my cookies because he just felt comfortable coming here…It’s just been hard for me to just digest,” said Pamela Hill as she shook her head.
“First of all, we would like to send our condolences and our deepest sympathy to the Thornton family, Young Dolph’s beautiful wife, and his two beautiful children. And us, just kind of in a nightmare that we can’t wake up from,” Maurice Hill told local news source KAIT 8.
Maurice Hill recalls that Young Dolph informed him a year ago that he wanted to spread the word about Makeda’s. The baker suddenly senses an unsettling and unpleasant parallel between what is occurring today and Makeda, his six-year-old niece, and the store’s namesake. She died of leukemia while a patient at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
