Rapper Silento, best known for the hit 2015 dance track “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),” faces felony assault charges after he allegedly tried to attack two strangers with a hatchet last weekend in the Valley Village section of Los Angeles.
According to a press release from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, the hip-hop star allegedly walked into a stranger’s unlocked home and “attempted to strike the two people in the home with a hatchet before one of them managed to disarm him.”
The 22-year-old performer, real name Richard Lamar Hawk, is charged with two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Hawk is being held in lieu of $105,000 bail, and is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday, Sept. 4, in Van Nuys.
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If convicted as charged, he faces up to six years in state prison.
Prosecutors said Hawk allegedly committed the crime while out on bail or on his own recognizance after being arrested a day earlier for a domestic violence incident in Santa Ana, California. He was booked there on suspicion of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant.
Silento inspired a dance craze with “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae).” The music video has since been viewed more than 1.7 billion times on YouTube.