When Allen Taylor was a child, he received a toy car for Christmas called Tantrum.
“The wheels would spin around like crazy like the car was having a tantrum,” Allen’s older sister Shameka Sawyer said with a laugh.
“Tantrum” became Allen’s nickname, and when he started rapping, he shortened it to “Tanch.”
Shameka is a producer, and she organized Allen’s first hip hop show at the YWCA in Germantown. He was a student at Martin Luther King High School at the time, and Shameka wasn’t expecting a big crowd, but kids poured in to watch Tanch perform.
Shameka, Allen and their older brother Wendell were there for each other and supported each other’s dreams. A turning point came in 2011, when Wendell died of cancer.
“In my opinion, Allen never came to terms with losing his older brother. You expect to grow old with your siblings,” Shameka said. “For a while, he was depressed about it. As time went on, he was a little better. You still have those moments when there are a lot of memories and thoughts and it’s tough to get through.”
Shameka never expected that she would lose Allen, too.
On June 1, 2020, a week before his 35th birthday, Allen told his mother he was going out to the store and he never came home. He was shot and killed in the 6000 block of Musgrave Street in Germantown, not far from where he and his mother lived. Police have not made any arrests.
“I just want people to know that he is more than a statistic. He is more than just a name,” Shameka said. “He was a person. He had a family that loved him. He was a father and had children that loved him. This gun violence situation didn’t only impact him, it impacted everyone connected to him and everyone that loves him. We are all hurting and in pain over this and we will never be the same.”
Allen performing as Tanch.
Allen was born in Philadelphia on June 7, 1985 to his mother Brenda and father Allen Taylor, Sr. Growing up, Allen enjoyed drawing and wanted to be an artist. Shameka is eight years older than Allen, and her role was to be his protector. He went wherever she went.
Allen looked for the best in people and he was trusting, which didn’t always serve him, Shameka said. He was popular and social, and people were drawn to him. He had that “it factor.”
“He was very charismatic, he loved attention, he used his extravert personality as a way to hide his insecurities. He would show the world one side, but to me he was always fighting something,” Shameka said.
“I really and truly believe he was fighting against coming to grips with realizing how tough it is in this society to be a Black man,” Shameka continued. “Just that struggle of trying to figure out your place when the majority of the odds are stacked against you. But he would do this best to look at things from a positive perspective.”
Family was the most important thing in Allen’s life, Shameka said. He was a father of three: his daughter is now 18, his son is 16 and his youngest son is 10. He was a great dad and would take his kids to places like the beach and Dave & Buster’s.
Allen was also really big on cookouts. He was known to put together cookouts on the spur of the moment: He’d go out and buy food and drinks, and he’d have neighbors man the grill while he went around and made sure everyone was having a good time.
Over the last few years of Allen’s life, Shameka noticed a change in her brother.
“I don’t know what caused the change. We were close, but there are certain things he didn’t tell me about,” Shameka said. “I always wanted to respect his privacy, and when he was ready he’d tell me.”
She saw Allen hanging out with certain people, and “their influence had an impact on who he started to become,” she said. “You are who you hang around. The people he started to connect with weren’t a really good influence on his life.”
Allen wanted to create a documentary with Shameka where he’d share his stories and caution young boys against getting involved with the wrong people. They did not have enough time to finish it before Allen died, but Shameka went on to create her own documentary about her brother called “Sometimes I Cry in June.” Watch it by clicking here.
Shameka wished that Allen would have figured out exactly what he wanted for his life. He wanted to be a mentor to young kids of color, and she would have loved to have seen him progress in that direction.
She was always rooting for him to become an entrepreneur and succeed with his T-shirt line, and she was trying to inspire him to go back to school for his GED. He would have been great in the field of behavioral science.
“In the end, the one thing that I would have wanted was to see him happy,” Shameka said. “Really and truly happy with himself and where he was in life.”
Allen is laid to rest at Merion Memorial Park in Bala Cynwyd.
A reward of up to $20,000 if available to anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for Allen’s murder. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
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