Police are investigating whether the murder of a rapper known as “Incognito” in south London is gang-related.
The 23-year-old, whose real name is Siddique Kamara, is the second member of drill music group Moscow17 to have been killed on Warham Street, Camberwell, in three months.
A 16-year-old boy and 31-year-old man were also stabbed in the attack at around 7.20pm on Wednesday night.
Two men, aged 18 and 19, have been arrested on suspicion of murder and are in custody.
Incognito was pronounced dead at the scene and the two injured males were taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries.
A police cordon remains in place around the area where the incident occurred.
Detective Chief Inspector Richard Leonard, who is leading the investigation, said: “Another young man has tragically and needlessly lost his life through an act of violence. “
“We are keeping an open mind about the positive motive for this attack, but at this early stage one line of enquiry is this being gang-related.”
Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, 17, also a member of Moscow17, was found with a fatal gunshot wound on Warham Street in May.
Moscow17’s tracks have received hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. Some feature references to other groups in the capital, including long-running rivals Zone 2 from Peckham.
In one track, Moscow17 told Zone 2 to “check the scoreboard”, while another asked “How you gonna make it even?”
A Zone 2 lyric in response told their rivals they would “roll up and burst them”.
1:00 Earlier this year, Incognito and another member of Moscow17 were cleared at the Old Bailey of murdering teenager Abdirahman Mohamed, a brother of a member of Zone 2.
In an interview with Link Up TV earlier this year, the rapper spoke about the effect of drill music on crime in the capital.
“You see with the crime that’s happening right now, music does influence it. You’ve got to put your hands up and say drill music does influence it,” he said.
“But knife crime and gun crime has been going on way before drill music, so if you want to talk about 10 years, 20 years, people were still getting cheffed up (attacked with knifes).”
He added: “There (are) many ways to solve it – you can bring out youth clubs, you can bring out many other things, invest money in other things to help the community, but you don’t want to do that – you just want to use an excuse with drill music.”
At the time of Barton’s death his mother, Pretana Morgan, called for a halt in the wave of violence in the capital.
She said: “You better wake up, you all have one life. One life you got, you better make use of it.
“All the children out there that got sense, for my son’s sake, please get out of this foolishness.”
More than 80 people are suspected to have been deliberately killed in London since the start of 2018.
In July, Sky News revealed as part of its Line 18 series that almost half of murder victims and murder suspects in the capital are young black men – out of proportion with London’s population, in which 13% are black.
:: Anyone with information is asked to call the incident room on 020 8721 4622 or police on 101 quoting 6806/01AUG.
From – SkyNews