Tyriece Travon Watson, better known as rapper Lor Scoota, was working hard to try to stop violence in his hometown of Baltimore.
Tragically, just a short while after leaving a charity basketball game he had hosted to promote such peace, Lor Scoota was shot and killed, the Washington Post reports.
According to the report, police say the up-and-coming rapper was in transit at 6:56 p.m. Saturday when an unknown man wearing a white bandanna stepped into the street and started shooting into Lor Scoota's car.
Lor Scoota, 23, was rushed to the hospital but did not survive. According to the Post, investigators are looking into the shooting as a targeted attack.
“We have to be tired of this. Can #Scoota be a wake up call for us?” police spokesman T.J. Smith tweeted. “He entertained many, now gone, just like that. We are better than this.”
Beloved in his hometown, Lor Scoota had a song in 2014, "Bird Flu," that had dozens of Baltimore residents doing the "Bird Flu dance," the Post notes. But he wasn't just an up-and-coming icon in pop culture. His voice was one of those promoting nonviolence after the death of Freddie Gray, "expressing understanding for those that were angry but also encouraging peace."
He spoke to Baltimore youth on a panel organized by Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby, husband of Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who charged six police officers in connection with Gray's death.
Lor Scoota also cared about the kids, the Post notes. Just last month he read to elementary school children about Martin Luther King Jr.
A video posted by Young Ballers Shinning ✨ (@scootaupnext) on May 6, 2016 at 11:31am PDT
“I never had my rapper or local rappers do that for me growing up,” he wrote on Instagram under a post of him reading. “Just wanted to give the kids that experience and a memory.”
Read more at the Washington Post.