Rapper Phat Geez was shot and killed March 17, 2024. (6abc)
Police are investigating a shooting that left a popular Philadelphia rapper dead in Brewerytown.
Officers responded to a report of a person with a gun at about 10:10 p.m. Sunday on the 1200 block of North Taney Street.
When police arrived, they found a man who had been shot multiple times lying in the street.
The man was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center where he died a short time later.
The victim has been identified as Derrick Gant, 28, who is also known as Phat Geez.
Meek Mill, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, spoke out about the shooting on social media.
Gant had recently dropped a single called “nogunzone” that was about curbing gun violence in the city.
“He was a good dude. We were together yesterday and he was praying at the masjid, trying to do good deeds, feeding the homeless,” said Gant’s brother Dushone Perry.
Popular radio and media personality Mina Saywhat Llona first interviewed the rapper 10 years ago and watched his career over the past decade.
“It’s just heartbreaking that this man, this young man, was advocating against the senseless violence that ultimately he was a victim of,” she said.
Investigators have video of Gant speaking to someone in the passenger side of a vehicle on the street before the shots were fired. Police have video of that vehicle that fled after the gunfire.
A suspect has not yet been identified, police said.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call police. As with all Philadelphia homicides, there is a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.