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Kelvin Odunuyi

Age: 19

Sex: male

Date: 8 Mar 2018

Place: Vue Cinema, Wood Green High Road, Wood Green, London

Kelvin Odunuyi was shot at the Vue cinema in Wood Green, London on 8 March 2018.

He was shot by a man on the back of a moped. He had been standing about with a number of other youths in the foyer area at the time when the moped came towards the door and fired shots at them.

The police were called to the scene at about 12.32am.

Kelvin Odunuyi was taken to hospital but died two hours later.

He had been shot at several times, with one shot entering his head, killing him. The moped was said to have mounted the pavement before the pillion passenger opened fire. The murder was recorded by several CCTV cameras in the area and at the cinema.

It was said that the moped had made two passes and that it appeared that Kelvin Odunuyi might have suspected that the first shots fired had been blanks as it appeared that after first hiding further inside the cinema complex he had then gone back towards the door armed with a knife to look out at which point he was shot in the head during a second volley.

It was thought that his murder was in revenge for the murder of a 22-year-old man, Kwabena Nelson, who was stabbed to death a few weeks earlier as well as his part in the UK drill rap scene and being a member of the Wood Green gang. It was alleged that he had stabbed up to ten people and that he had been involved in the murder of Kwabena Nelson, it being said that his DNA was found at the scene.

Rival gangs suspected of being involved with his murder were the Northumberland Park Killers (NPK), Albany Park gang (AP) and the Original Farm Boys gang (OFB).

However, it was also suggested that the hit might have been a paid hit deriving from some form of personal rivalry.

It was said that he had uploaded a video to Snapchat earlier in the evening of 8 March 2018 showing that he was at the Vue cinema complex in Wood Green and that in response the two people on the moped had gone there looking for him with the intention of shooting him.

A 21-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder on 11 March 2018 but later released under investigation pending further investigations.

The police said, 'Enquiries have led us to believe that a pillion passenger on a moped that had mounted the pavement fired several shots in Kelvin's direction before speeding off. We need to know who was on that moped'.

It was also said that his murder was gang related and part of an ongoing feud between gangs from the N22 Wood Green area and the N17 Tottenham area that had been ongoing for ten years.

Two other murders around the same time that were connected to the gang war were those of Tanesha Melbourne-Blake and Kwabena Nelson.

Following his death a drill rap song was uploaded to YouTube, the video sharing service on the internet, in which two rappers sang a song that referred to Kelvin Odunuyi's murder. The lyrics included, 'Park Lane bopping, the opps dem dropping, come here, I got you a coffin. 12 gauge long like Kelvin’s coffin'. The news reports of the song, published in November 2019, noted that the video had been seen over 25,000 times.

In January 2021 it was reported that Kelvin Odunuyi's murder had been recreated in the video game Grand Theft Auto and recorded as a video that had then been distributed on the video sharing internet program Instagram and other social media platforms. The video showed some people being shot at outside a cinema by someone on a moped after which the audio of a 'realistic sounding' 999 call was heard in which a person said, 'Someone has been shot dead at Hollywood Green cinema, Wood Green' after which drill rap music was played.

Kelvin Odunuyi had been a rapper and was known as DipDat and Lampz and was said to have been active in the UK Drill scene.

His murder was described as the most mocked in the North London drill scene, with two notable videos songs being:

  • Kelvin’s Coffin
  • Prison Freestyle

The lyrics in Prison Freestyle had been, 'Don’t mention Lampz, Cah he chinged up half of your team, Bmt I don’t lie on beats, We leave guys on ITV'. It was noted that Prison Freestyle had been posted to Snapchat from Pentonville Prison, the footage being filmed in a prison cell there. The clip was 75 seconds long and was viewed over 300,000 times.

A man from the organisation 'Lives Instead of Knives', said, 'It’s a mockery of justice. People go to prison for murder but are able to produce music'.

It was noted that Kelvin Odunuyi had actually attended a private school, Fulneck School in Pudsey which he had attended as a boarder that his parents, who ran a property business in Nigeria, had paid £26,000 a year for, and that his role in London gang activity and drill rap music was not considered typical.

He had become involved with the gangs in Wood Green after his parents moved there, but after they became concerned for his safety they moved to Harrow. His mother said, 'We sent him away because it was the best school for him. I have always lived in London but when we moved to Wood Green for a short time I got scared for my family. We now live in Harrow and I told him not to go back to Wood Green to see friends. But he did and now he is dead after being shot dead in a random attack. Police said it was wrong place at wrong time. He was with a big group when two boys on bicycles came along shooting, he was hit, it’s a tragedy. I am devastated. I knew he would be safe at home with me but he went there and now he is dead. Another mother is grieving, enough is enough, the government needs to act to stop the bloodshed'.

Kelvin Odunuyi was Nigerian.


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