Rapper Pop Smoke killed in home invasion aged 20
Rapper Pop Smoke has been fatally shot in an early-morning home invasion hours after posting his home address to social media.
The 20-year-old, born Bashar Barakah Jackson, was at a home in the Hollywood Hills, California, when invaders broke in Wednesday about 4.30am (local time) and killed him, police told TMZ.
The men allegedly fired multiple shots and the rapper was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in West Hollywood where he was pronounced dead.
“We are devastated by the unexpected and tragic loss of Pop Smoke,” a rep for the label he is signed with, Republic Records, said.
“Our prayers and thoughts go out to his family, friends and fans, as we mourn this loss together”.
Pop Smoke apparently revealed the address to the house in a recent social media post, although it appears to have since been taken down.
Surveillance video of the home that night allegedly showed four masked people enter the property 10 minutes after occupants dead bolted the front doors, sources told the publication.
They said the bandits may have snuck in more easily because there was no house alarm activated at the time.
Police are understood to be searching for the people responsible and have yet to determine a motive.
The rapper, best known for singles Welcome to the Party and Dior, released his first mixtape Welcome to the Woo last July, and has collaborated with artists including Nicki Minaj and Travis Scott.
His second mixtape, Meet the Woo 2, was released this month and debuted at number seven on Billboard's Top 200 chart.
Pop Smoke was scheduled to begin a month-long North American tour on March 2, and then perform in England in April.
In January, Pop Smoke was arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport -- hours before he was scheduled to perform at a concert -- on a charge of transporting a stolen vehicle over state lines.
The vehicle was a black 2019 Rolls-Royce worth an estimated $375,000 that he had borrowed for a music video in California, according to an indictment and a law enforcement official; investigators told the New York Times the car was found parked outside Pop Smoke's mother's home in Brooklyn, with a different licence plate.
The rapper, who had just arrived in New York from Paris Fashion Week, pleaded not guilty and was released on $250,000 bail the same day.
Last week, he denied the charge in an interview with Power 105.1's Angie Martinez, calling the incident "foolishness."
In October, he was one of five New York rappers that the NYPD blocked from performing at the Rolling Loud hip-hop festival in Queens.
Officers claimed that the rappers had been "affiliated with recent acts of violence citywide", but did not specify any criminal behaviour.
- with Reuters
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