A legendary figure in the Bronx hip-hop scene — who worked frequently with lifelong friend Fat Joe — was stabbed to death while partying in an afterhours lounge, the Daily News has learned.
Percy Forrest was knifed in the chest at the Agenda Restaurant and Lounge in Astoria, Queens, about 2:20 a.m. Nov. 11, cops said. The killing remains unsolved.
“In the music industry overall he was very well known,” Denise Forrest, 33, proudly said of her 55-year-old father. “Him and Fat Joe were best friends.”
(L-R) Percy Forrest and Fat Joe attend French Montana’s Album Release Party at Webster Hall on May 21, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)
Medics rushed Forrest to Elmhurst Hospital where he died.
Yulonda Paul said her slain husband had been to the lounge where he would later be killed many times before — including with her last New Year’s Eve.
“I cannot even fathom what occurred. I just wish it was a night that he did not go,” she said. “I heard it was really really crowded that night.”
Police took a person of interest into custody following the fatal stabbing at the nightspot on 31st St. near Newtown Ave., but he was released without being charged and there have been no arrests.
Raised in the Bronx’s Forest Houses, and later the Highbridge Houses, Forrest’s death sparked a wave of tributes from Bronx natives who praised the late music manager as a fashion and hip-hop icon.
Percy Forrest (Facebook)
“This guy was the best dressed since we were kids,” wrote Lelee Lyons on Facebook. “Highbridge will never be the same because Percy had a presence.”
“Damn Percy, you just devastated a whole community of people with this,” Instagram user king.barbero posted on Monday. “SIP good brother. A Bronx legend.”
The tributes are a source of both pride and pain for Forrest’s grieving widow, who in an exclusive interview with The News described her struggle to accept that her 30-year relationship with her husband ended in senseless violence.
“I honestly have been staying away from social media. It’s painful to see my husband’s pictures over and over,” Paul told The News. “The outpouring of love is beautiful to see but it’s very painful.”
“It’s like this is not real,” she added. “It’s like it’s a bad dream and it’s not true and he’s going to call me and I’m just waiting to see him. I’m waiting for him to show up and it’s not going to happen.”
The couple met at a skating rink in the 1990s after Forrest approached Paul to compliment her style.
“He wanted to know where I got my sneakers from. I had these nice Nikes you didn’t see everywhere and he likes fashion,” Paul remembered.
“We were inseparable right away. We’ve been 30 years together.”
Paul is left to comfort Forrest’s children and the many people who have called with their condolences as she tries to ground herself in the midst of her heartbreak. She reached a milestone birthday shortly after his slaying.
“This is my 50th birthday,” she said. “All we talked about was the things we were going to do for my 50th birthday and now he’s not even here.”
Forrest discussed his music career and relationship with Fat Joe in an interview with Frank Roth on the YouTube channel Elephant Pick, where he described meeting the famous rapper in kindergarten as the pair waited to be scolded.
Percy Forrest (Instagram)
“I was the baddest black guy in the school, Joe was the baddest Puerto Rican in the school and we would always meet each other in the principal’s office,” Forrest told Roth in the 2022 interview.
“One day we was looking at each other and was like, ‘Wassup, wassup’, and we started laughing and became best friends. This was kindergarten. We remained friends throughout the years.”
As a young man, Forrest was a member of a four-man dance crew called Up Town’s Hottest when a late-night brawl inspired him to give up performing and start hustling on the streets, he told Roth.
Forrest was managing an R&B group and working a lucrative ticket scalping scheme when Fat Joe approached him with an offer to join Terror Squad if he agreed to leave the streets behind, Forrest said in the interview on YouTube.
“Joe hollered at me one day and said, ‘Yo listen, if you leave the streets alone I’ll help you with this music thing. But you got to leave the streets alone’,” Forrest recounted on Elephant Pick. “So I left the streets alone. That’s how I came into the music business and did the whole Terror Squad.”
In 1995 Forrest began a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for an assault in Manhattan and was paroled just before Christmas 1998, records show.
Forrest was arrested for a Harlem murder in 2011 and his music career went on hiatus as he languished at Rikers Island for 18 months awaiting trial. But the case was dismissed, according to his defense lawyer, Dawn Florio.
“No one testified at trial that Percy Forrest shot the deceased,” she said. “The judge dismissed the indictment … The charges were dropped completely. It didn’t even go to the jury.”
Fat Joe commented on his old friend’s travails in a 2023 clip posted to YouTube where he discussed how Forrest’s many admirers failed to support him during his lengthy legal struggle.
“When you with Percy, he’s a celebrity, dip fresh every day. They act like they love him,” said the rapper in a video posted by the TruRich channel. “He caught the murder case… Percy’s wife goes to court and she calls me in Dubai, ‘Yo Joe, I went to court today and I was alone.”’
Forrest’s wife still feels the pain of those days.
“You can imagine if you’re in jail what your mental state is,” said Paul. “Being in jail, it was torturous. He was away from his family. He couldn’t provide for his family. It wasn’t a good time for anybody. It was horrific.”
Fat Joe marveled his friend bore no grudges against those who failed to support him in court.
“I couldn’t imagine a n—a praying everyday because he’s about to go to jail for life for a murder to come out here and pretend like these n—-s ain’t front on him and ain’t show up in court,” Fat Joe said. “I would be very different.”
Percy Forrest was knifed in the chest at the Agenda Restaurant and Lounge in Astoria, Queens on November 11. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
Forrest’s son said that while there may have been some empty seats in the gallery at his trial, he did have friends that supported him.
“He wasn’t short of love when he was going through that,” said 21-year-old Dior Forrest. “Not everybody turned out but the people who did turn out, they turned out and they showed up.”
In addition to his work promoting and managing artists under the label All of Us Entertainment, Forrest acted as a concierge to the stars, providing celebrity musicians and athletes with access to the best restaurants and parties, his wife said.
“He was able to get into rooms other people couldn’t get into,” said Paul. “Basketball players would come into town and want to know the best restaurant to go to.”
“He would get them reservations for places that were hard to get into, he would get you in,” she added. “Percy was that guy.”
Her husband’s death has brought to light the celebrity he enjoyed in the Bronx and beyond.
“I didn’t realize that when I’m in here fussing about him taking out the garbage or changing a lightbulb, he goes outside and people treat him like he’s this guy,” said Paul. “I knew he was connected and he was well respected. I didn’t realize the magnitude. I didn’t know it went this far and I’m proud of him.”
With Thomas Tracy
