After an aspiring teenage rapper was fatally shot in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood Tuesday, police are investigating whether the boy's rivalry with another area rapper was to blame for the slaying.
Joseph Coleman, better known by his stage name "Lil JoJo," was shot in the back when a car pulled up while he was riding a bicycle in the 6900 block of South Princeton Avenue on the city's South Side around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Coleman, 18, was pronounced dead a short while later at an area hospital.
Hours after the shooting, 17-year-old up-and-coming rapper Chief Keef, who was featured at both Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival this summer in Chicago and was recently remixed by Kanye West, took to Twitter to respond to the shooting, according to NBC Chicago:
Later, Chief Keef -- real name: Keith Cozart -- claimed that his Twitter account had been hacked.
Keef is associated with Lil Reese, another rising Chicago rapper, who was engaged in an ongoing rivalry with Coleman, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Police say the slaying may be connected to a long-standing feud between two street gangs in the area -- the Gangster Disciples and the Black Disciples -- and that Coleman had been battling online with members of the Black Disciplines for some time prior to the shooting, the Sun-Times reports.
Chief Keef, who signed to Interscope Records this summer, previously was sentenced to house arrest after he was arrested and charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon last December.
Keef also targeted Lupe Fiasco in recent weeks after the fellow Chicago rapper said in an interview that the violence of Keef's and other young artists' lyrics was disheartening, according to NBC.
Fiasco tweeted Wednesday that his next album will "probably be his last" because he no longer wants to take part in the culture.
but my heart is broken and i see no comfort further along this path only more pain. I cannot participate any longer in this...
— Lupe Fiasco (@LupeFiasco) September 5, 2012
The area where Coleman was gunned down is located about a block from where the family of Oscar-winning actress and singer Jennifer Hudson was murdered in 2008. It is also located in one of the two districts that Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy this week held up as an example of where the city's gang-fighting, anti-violence initiatives are proving effective.
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