He was killed for a tune.
An aspiring Bronx drill rapper, lured to his loss of life final weekend by a telephone name, was possible gunned down over the name-dropping lyrics in his music, a police supply confirmed Wednesday.
Detectives imagine the killing of 17-year-old Jordany Aracena was retaliation for the content material of his songs — though it was unclear whether or not any of the 5 ski-masked males who got here to kill the youth this previous Sunday night time had been talked about in his recordings, the supply stated. No arrests had been made within the slaying.
Metropolis Councilman Oswald Feliz, a childhood buddy of the sufferer’s older brother, stated {the teenager} apparently talked about the names of slain gangbangers and drill rappers in his lyrics, unwittingly setting the lethal occasions in movement.
“He was very new to drill and stated the incorrect factor in a tune,” stated the Bronx elected official. “That will have made him a goal. In my district, we’ve seen that sample time and again.”
The NYPD cited the drill rap tradition earlier this yr for inflaming gang tensions, with the rappers usually taunting rivals of their lyrics and movies — resulting in deadly outcomes. Mayor Adams even prompt some social media firms ban drill performers’ movies after the slayings of two aspiring rappers in Brooklyn.
Fellow Bronx Councilwoman Diana Ayala echoed the mayor’s complaints about companies permitting violence-related content material on their platforms.
“It’s not even simply the drill music itself,” she stated. “It’s the threats, the medicine. The stuff that younger impressionable individuals are idolizing.”
However members of the family of the younger homicide sufferer instructed the Day by day Information they imagine the killing was a theft gone incorrect regardless of strategies the surprising slaying was tied to the “diss lyrics” in a few of his songs.
“Sure, he was a rapper,” stated the sufferer’s cousin Odales Lenus, 61, who helped elevate the teenager after the boy’s mom died 4 years in the past. “However he was glad and had quite a lot of associates. … It wasn’t his music, it was a theft.”
In keeping with cops, Jordany was on Beekman Ave. close to E. 141st St. in Mott Haven when the bullets beginning flying round 6:15 p.m. on Sunday. Jordany took a deadly gunshot to the chest, and was pronounced useless at Lincoln Hospital, authorities stated.
“He was by no means violent, aside from his music,” stated Eric Scott, 21, a boxing coach, buddy and neighbor. “He’d be mendacity [in his raps] about what he did and was going to do, like plenty of dudes. It’s a disgrace.”
Detectives on the scene positioned 4 shell casings left on the road after the deadly quintet, all wearing black, ran off.
Whereas an area man who noticed the aftermath of the capturing prompt a gang-related beef because the motive, Scott described Jordany as somebody on the verge of touchdown a report deal.
“He was on the rise,” stated Scott. “He had A&R folks thinking about him … He was a very nice dude, at all times laughs and smiles.”
Motive apart, the slain teen’s ailing father was crushed by the violent loss of life of his son, the youngest of his 4 children.
“My spouse died, and now our Jordany — he wasn’t the identical after that,” stated dad Jordan Aracena, 62, who landed on incapacity after a pair of huge coronaries. “He was a very good son, I beloved him with all my coronary heart. Now that my son is useless, I can’t be glad any extra.”
His cousin Lenus recalled the Eleventh-grade scholar at Discovery Excessive Faculty had stopped going to lessons and was hanging out with a crowd that she described as not “good folks.” She heard the gunshots final Sunday and ran exterior to seek out the dying teen.
“He was faceup, bleeding,” she stated. “Jordany was shot within the chest, within the arm. He stated, ‘Oh my God.’ After we acquired to the hospital, my daughter stated, ‘He’s dying.’ Then the physician stated, ‘He’s gone.’”
