The machete-wielding nut who slashed three straphangers and referred to as himself “Lucifer” earlier than police shot him lifeless at Grand Central Station rapped beneath the stage title “Fox 5” and fixated on faith in his freestyle lyrics, The Put up has discovered.
Anthony Griffin, 44, was even pictured posing with a broad-based knife in a photograph posted on his Instagram account a couple of yr earlier than the Saturday subway assault, with pals claiming he carried across the machete for defense and admitting he’d struggled together with his psychological well being.
“I’m exhausted …The messiah is drained, bro … I’m a child, born once more, however I’m solely 43 and I’m drained, bro,” he mentioned to the digital camera in an April 2025 clip.
“I ain’t been 33 in 9 years. What they did to Jesus at 33 since we’re going to play numbers video games? What occurred at 33 for Jesus?”
In one other rap video posted the identical month, he claimed he was “gonna reside how I wanna” and “even when I odor dying across the nook … it’s removed from my persona. I’m the God, n—a.”
“We gonna f–okay the satan up. He can’t cease this stage up,” he rapped repeatedly in one other clip.
“When it’s time for revelation, that’s the second I’ll be up… Devil by no means held me up. Father by no means held me again.”
Griffin, a Bronx native who had at the least 13 earlier arrests, slashed and wounded three aged victims – two males and a girl – when he went on a rampage with a machete on the uptown Nos. 4,5,6 subway platform round 9:50 a.m. April 11, police mentioned.
He repeatedly claimed that he was “Lucifer” when two NYPD detectives, who have been working time beyond regulation to offer transit safety, confronted him and ordered him to drop the blade 20 instances, earlier than fatally taking pictures him, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch mentioned.
Members of the rap world mentioned they have been shocked, telling The Put up Griffin grew to become well-known for his music a long time in the past.
“That’s not him, him saying ‘Lucifer,’ a machete, that’s not who Fox was,” Atlanta rapper and fellow Bronx native Mickey Factz mentioned Monday.
“He was only a real, energetic man who beloved his group and beloved to create music. It’s so unhappy that his psychological well being took over him.”
Griffin, whose Instagram deal with was “almighty_gawdflow,” often rambled about faith in social media movies, the final of which appeared to have been posted to his account practically a yr in the past.
He additionally put up a photograph of himself seemingly holding a machete in January 2025. Associates advised Information 12 Griffin carried the blade for what they claimed was safety, but in addition that he had been affected by psychological well being issues.
Griffin nonetheless carried out in entrance of small crowds previously few years, based on his social media.
In a January 2023 YouTube video filmed aboard a subway prepare, he defined that he’d stopped battle rapping about 13 years earlier, whereas saying “hip-hop selected me, I didn’t select hip-hop.”
“God gave me a heartbeat so I already had an instrumental so you realize talking my thoughts is my freedom. It’s my liberation,” he mentioned, earlier than explaining his “Fox 5” stage title.
“That is earlier than the web, that is earlier than DVDs, I already named myself Fox 5,” he mentioned, carrying sun shades and a slouchy cap.
“I knew once I can be a newsflash sooner or later.”
Factz, the man rapper, mentioned Griffin was on a slew of hip hop DVDs from the early 2000s. The 2 additionally collaborated with different artists after connecting in 2010.
“He’s all the time been an eccentric man. Once we have been all collectively to form of do some hip-hop stuff, he was probably the most exuberant. He was probably the most thrilling. He had probably the most power,” Factz mentioned. “He drew lots of people in with how he carried himself.”
However Griffin appeared to endure a pointy psychological decline lately, Factz mentioned.
“Numerous us who form of knew him, we by no means skilled that facet of him,” he mentioned.
