Rapper Nick Blixky, 21, Gunned Down in Brooklyn

A 21-year-old New York rapper was gunned down on a Brooklyn street three weeks before the release of his first mixtape. Police responding to a 911 call about a man who had been shot found Nick Blixky unresponsive on Winthrop Street in Prospect Lefferts Gardens around 9:30pm Sunday, Brooklyn Paper and CNN report. Seven spent shell casings were found on the ground around him; he was killed just four blocks from where he lived. The Jamaican-American rapper, real name Nickalus Thompson, was set to release his debut mixtape June 3, the New York Post reports.

No arrests have yet been made. A police source tells the New York Daily News cops are investigating a possible link to rapper Pop Smoke's murder in California in February after social media posts gloating about Blixky's killing cropped up. "There’s a chance it could be related to the Pop Smoke killing out west," the source says. "A couple of people were talking junk on social media—Facebook Live—about [Blixky] being dead. It might be a little bit of a rap war with a gang nexus to it." Pop Smoke, 20, was from Brooklyn, and after he was killed, "his rivals were making light of his death," the source says. (More New York City stories.)