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Music

The Life and Beats of Child-Killer Kodi Maybir

The Christian hip-hop producer has been found guilty of a Sydney boy's 'pogo stick' murder.

Kodi Maybir, a 31-year-old Sydney hip-hop producer has been found guilty of murdering his girlfriend's seven-year-old son after months of abuse. The boy was found dead inside an Oately music studio in May 2013, after his mother told paramedics he’d fallen from a pogo stick.

Maybir had pleaded not guilty to murdering the boy.

Maybir later admitted he’d made up the pogo stick story, and claimed the boy fell off a coffee tin he was standing on as punishment. Prosecutors say neither version is true and that Maybir had been physically abusing the boy under the guise of discipline. They accused him of killing the boy by inflicting blunt force trauma to the head.

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This verdict is a weird twist to Maybir’s non-illustrious career as a Christian hip-hop artist. Performing and releasing music under the name Kopri (or General Kopri), Maybir was active in the city’s rap battle scene, but began taking serious steps toward making a name in 2010 with the release of his debut album D.O.A.R (Diary of a Renegade) through his own label, Seventy Seven Records.

At the beginning of 2013 things were looking up for Maybir. He’d formed a group with two promising rappers and he began dating Kayla James who with her three children moved into Maybir’s recording studio.

On May 21 2013, James called emergency services worried for her son. On a recording of James’ phone call to emergency services she tells the operator, “My son was playing on a pogo stick where he fell over and um… he’s been sleeping and, I’m just… he’s not moving.” She bursts into tears. The operator guided her through a resuscitation procedure but the boy died before paramedics arrived.

Police became suspicious of James and Maybir after seizing security footage showing a relative leaving the scene with two large garbage bags less than a minute before the ambulance arrived.

According to witness testimony, when police arrived at the house in response to the 000 call they heard Maybir tell his girlfriend, “he’s in a better place, he’s with Jesus now.”

Many of Maybir’s songs have a religious focus and mention his faith in God and Jesus. He sings about his skills and love of rap, and intersperses stories from his life with philosophical insights. Yes his beats are dated, his flow sometimes falters and his voice can be annoying. But with the exception of a few tracks, he doesn’t totally embarrass himself.

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He has a Triple J Unearthed account, and an artist page on Reverb Nation claims that Kopri is a paid motivational speaker in schools, juvenile detention centres and that “he has a strong faith in Christ but does not believe in church.”

His music videos include him lip-synching and dancing in a SWAT jacket on the beach, and swinging a stick in a caravan park. His Twitter account went silent in mid May 2013 (the month the boy died) but in the months afterward he continued to upload videos of his music. The last was published roughly a week before he was charged with child abuse offences.

“Brighter Than The Brightest Day," a track from his Renegade By Nature album is inspired by his first wife who had and affair but Kodi says he “got himself together and came back on fire”.

Except for what would have to be veiled references, at no point during this period does Maybir suggest he is being investigated. In fact he seems positively optimistic about his future.

“When I am famous with this mic you shall call me great” he raps on “Brighter Than The Brightest Day.”

The prosecution argued that Maybir’s religious beliefs were his rationale for a brutal discipline regime that included shouting at the child for slowing down during a beep test then “punching him right in the middle of the face” when the boy fell over. They claim he also filmed himself encouraging the boy’s siblings to hit the child, and filming the boy’s mother spanking the child with a wooden plank to the point of creating blisters.

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Maybir claims this behaviour was necessary as he was training the seven-year-old, who had an intellectual disability, to be a “soldier for Christ”. He told the court that in 2006 he helped run boot camps for the male children of prisoners, which involved him wearing a whistle on his neck and playing the character of a "General".

Speaking directly to the jury during the trial Maybir said that his record company "took a strong stance against the music industry … opposing their ideals and how they push sex, drugs and alcohol in the form of music". The defence’s explanation for the boy’s death is that Maybir and the boy loved to wrestle and that’s what they were doing when the accident occurred.

Kayla James received a reduced 10-year sentence for manslaughter after agreeing to testify against Maybir.

Maybir will be sentenced on February 19.