JEFE REPLAY

Jefe Replay was born on November 14, 1993, and was a rapper from Roxbury, Massachusetts, raised alongside ten cousins and uncles at 27 Adams Street, across from the Orchard Park playgrounds. His own official bio describes him making music since high school, until "his city began to take notice of a sound that was uniquely, undeniably Boston."

His given name was Jeff Ravelo. In his earliest years, under the group Pilot Nation (around 2012-2013), he was credited as "Jeff Replay"; starting in 2015, with the single "Sips Tea," he consistently adopted the spelling "Jefe Replay" — "jefe" as his personal brand, "Model, Artist, CEO" — which he used for the rest of his career across Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, and SoundCloud. The official video "What You Need," released posthumously by his own team in 2023, explicitly credits him as "Jeff 'Jefe Replay' Ravelo," confirming both spellings belong to the same person. He also went by the nickname "Juan," the origin of his "Ask For Juan" brand.

Around 2012 he forms Pilot Nation alongside Cousin Stizz and Nick Gray. Per Cousin Stizz's BINJ profile, Replay and Stizz met at a preseason basketball game at Dorchester House, began rapping together, and were later joined by Nick Gray; the group built a following "across Dorchester, Roxbury, and the college circuit." The group's own management YouTube channel preserves that early catalog, including "Jeff Replay - The Runway," tracks alongside Nick Gray and Stizzy, and the "Expensive Heat" series.

When Stizz signs to RCA Records, Replay chooses an independent path — "prioritizing group opportunities over an individual deal," per BINJ. He was the sole featured guest on "Talk," from Suffolk County (2015), Stizz's first official project, and per Vice, it was Replay who tipped Stizz off to the "12 for 12" cypher series that proved pivotal to launching Stizz's solo career.

"Sips Tea" (August 2015, produced by Obeatz) was his widest-reaching single: premiered by Pigeons & Planes, it drew over 250,000 SoundCloud plays per multiple outlets, and its official video remains, as of this research, the most-viewed on his channel. An outstanding warrant kept him from attending SXSW in Austin — an episode he documents on "A Different Road," the opening track of his debut album, which a 2019 EXPOZEDtv interview refers to as "the four-year hiatus."

On February 1, 2019, he releases Proper Finessments, his twelve-track debut album — a date chosen, per his own bio, to mirror Roxbury's 02119 zip code. The album includes "Roxbury Syrup," a direct reference to his neighborhood, and "Extraordinary," the album's sole feature, with Maka. That December he wins Unsigned Artist of the Year at the 2019 Boston Music Awards.

Jefe Replay died on November 17, 2022, at age 29. No credible outlet consulted — including a November 18, 2022 Vanyaland report, which explicitly states no official cause was given — establishes a cause or location of death; this page does not state either.