The man who allegedly rushed the stage and attacked comedian Dave Chappelle as he performed Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl is an aspiring rapper who recorded a song in 2020 titled “Dave Chappell.”
Isaiah Arias Lee, who performs under the name “NoName Trapper,” was arrested on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, according to booking records. Lee, 23, was carrying a replica gun with a knife hidden inside, police said. After Chappelle’s security team subdued Lee—with the assistance of comedian Jamie Foxx—the 23-year-old was taken to a hospital for treatment. He remains jailed with bail set at $30,000. Chappelle, 48, was not injured in the bizarre incident.
Lee appeared seriously injured as he was loaded into an ambulance Tuesday.
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“Life with you [N-words] a joke,” Lee repeats over and over in the track about Chappelle he uploaded in 2020, also mentioning “keys to a boat,” seemingly without context.
In an Instagram story posted to his page prior to the attack, Lee can be seen wearing the same sweatshirt he wore during the Chappelle ambush. It has no sound and is just a few seconds long, but Lee filmed the clip with a filter that gives him what appear to be devil horns.
Other tracks by Lee include “Drugs in LA,” “AFLAC,” and “Trump Phone.”
“On my Trump, on my Trump, on my Trump phone,” go the lyrics. “Said I’m slippin’, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
It was not immediately clear what prompted Lee to allegedly accost Chappelle. A man listed as Lee’s manager on his social media accounts, Rich the Kid, did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Lee’s sister, Shawne Lee, lives in Brooklyn. Reached by phone, Lee told The Daily Beast that she had “actually just found out about” last night’s attack.
“At this point, the family is not speaking on anything,” she said.
Lee lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Redondo Beach, according to a November 2021 court filing related to his late grandmother’s estate. The filing says Lee was raised by his father’s mother, Joy Monroe Chatel, a community activist in Brooklyn known as “Mama Joy.”
After the attack, Chappelle continued the show, cracking a joke that his assailant was probably a “trans man,” riffing on the controversy that surrounded his 2021 Netflix stand-up special The Closer. That release was widely panned by the LGBTQ+ community over transphobic material in Chappelle’s act.
Chappelle was performing Tuesday night as part of Netflix’s first-ever comedy festival, called “Netflix Is A Joke.” During his set, Chappelle talked about hiring more security for himself following the hubbub around The Closer.
The Hollywood Bowl is roughly an hour’s drive from Lee’s front door.
