If ever you were trying to find Shannon “Boogie” Blassengale, chances were he was at one of three places, said his mother, Tiffany Blassengale: Working at a Sonic restaurant in Philadelphia, where he was manager and known as the city’s “fastest Sonic sandwich maker”; at playgrounds in his Port Richmond neighborhood either playing basketball or supervising local youth; or up on the corner near his house entertaining people with his freestyle rap prowess.
In fact, Tiffany laughed, one time she looked up an old address of hers on Google street view “and who’s standing there but Boogie, right there, rapping with the young boys.”
Despite some grievous tragedies, Shannon maintained a laid-back demeanor, always tried to have fun, and he loved life, his mother said.
That life came to an end on the night of Nov. 1, 2017, when Shannon was shot and killed on the 2200 block of East Ann Street in Port Richmond, not far from his residence. He was 27 years old.
Born at Temple University Hospital on Feb. 2, 1990, and raised in Germantown, Shannon earned his “Boogie” nickname as a youngster “because he was picking his nose a lot,” TIffany said matter-of-factly, bursting into fond laughter while adding that her son embraced the name and was proud of it. His siblings also had funny nicknames bestowed on them by his mother, including his brothers “Ant” (the smallest of Tiffany’s children), “Stank” (due to his “stanky diaper”), and “The Big Show” (the largest kid of the bunch).
“He was a quiet kid,” Tiffany said. “He just loved to write. He wrote poetry, songs, he was really creative at a very young age.”
In his teenage years, Shannon went to live in western Pennsylvania for a time, where he fell in love with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Even after returning to Philadelphia, he proudly rocked Steelers gear, even when he would catch good-natured flak from friends and neighbors. Tiffany said she could relate, since she’s a Dallas Cowboys fan in Philadelphia Eagles country.
When he was around 17, Shannon took some of those lyrics he wrote as a youngster and started to rap, tweaking his old nickname to record tracks under the moniker “Ace Boogie.”
“Rapping made him the most happy, that and basketball,” his mother said. Shannon was tall, but not as tall as his brother “The Big Show,” who had grown to 6’7”, and they used to go at it on the court. “They were playing one day and he came and told me, ‘Mom, he whooped my ass, don’t say nothing but I’m in a lot of pain,” Tiffany recalled with a laugh. “I said, ‘It’s OK, baby, I ain’t gonna say nothin’.’”
Shannon got a job at Sonic when he was 19, and he worked his way up to manager there over his eight years. “He loved that job so much,” his mother said.
Calamity befell the family a decade ago when Shannon’s sister, Jasmin, was shot while somebody else was playing with a gun, and she died of complications from her wounds three years later, Tiffany said.
Last year, Shannon became a father to his daughter, Aliah, but she passed away from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome just a couple of months before he was killed.
“He was really devastated, all he wanted was his daughter, she was his pride and joy,” Tiffany said, fighting back tears. “But now he gets to take care of her.”
After his daughter’s death, Shannon still tried hard to maintain a positive outlook on life, and in his final months he made a point of keeping a watchful eye on all the younger kids in his neighborhood, serving as a mentor on the basketball court and elsewhere.
“He didn’t ever start trouble, that’s why we couldn’t believe what happened,” Tiffany said. The man who allegedly killed Blassengale turned himself in to police shortly after the shooting, and a trial is scheduled for later this year, Tiffany said.
“More people than I expected came out to Boogie’s memorials at the church and the funeral home to say goodbye,” his mother said. “It’s been hard, everybody’s kind of drifting apart now because Boogie was the kind of person to bring the whole family together. But we’re doing the best we can.”
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