Grammy-nominated US rapper Nipsey Hussle has been killed in a shooting outside the clothing shop that he owned in Los Angeles.
The 33-year-old, real name Ermias Asghedom, was shot multiple times outside Marathon Clothing, in the south of the city, “just moments after posing for photos with fans”, reports the Daily Mail. Two other men were also wounded in the attack, on Sunday afternoon, but were in stable conditions, the newspaper adds.
The lone shooter has yet to be identified, but the Los Angeles Times reports that the incident is thought to be gang-related.
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Following the shooting, Los Angeles Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff said that he and Police Chief Michael Moore had been scheduled to meet with Hussle and representatives of Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s entertainment agency and production company, on Monday afternoon to “talk about ways he could help stop gang violence and help us help kids”.
LA Mayor Eric Garcetti described Hussle’s death as a tragedy, tweeting: “LA is hurt deeply each time a young life is lost to senseless gun violence.”
The rapper - whose debut studio album, Victory Lap, was nominated for Best Rap Album of the Year at the 2019 Grammys - had spoken of his association as a teenager with the Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips, one of LA’s biggest street gangs.
In an interview last year, he described growing up amid gang culture, saying: “We dealt with death, with murder. It was like living in a war zone, where people die on these blocks and everybody is a little bit immune to it.”
In recent years, Hussle had turned his focus to helping children from similar backgrounds avoid gun violence and get better educations, according to USA Today.
The star was an investor in Vector 90, a co-working space in South Central Los Angeles that offers science, technology and mathematics classes for young people, and hoped to expand the programme to other US cities, NBC news reports.
Fellow rapper Pharrell Williams and singer Rhianna are among the many fans paying tribute to Hussle on social media.
Hussle is survived by his long-term partner, actress and model Lauren London, and their two children.
