CHICAGO _ Chicago police are investigating whether a rapper was killed in a brazen shooting after recently making a video featuring "derogatory statements" about rival gang members who have died.
Carlton Weekly, who performed under the name FBG Duck, belonged to a Gangster Disciple faction, and police believe it may now seek retaliation against the Black Disciples across the South Side, according to sources.
Officers in at least four police districts _ Wentworth, Grand Crossing, Gresham and Englewood _ have been warned to use "extreme caution" because of the "high probability of further violence," according to an advisory issued by the department.
"Intelligence suggests that both these gangs are in possession of large caliber and high capacity firearms," it adds.
Weekly, 26, and two other people were shot about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday when four gunman jumped out of two cars and opened fire in the first block of East Oak Street as shoppers strolled past high-end retailers that line the street in the Gold Coast neighborhood.
Weekly was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A 36-year-old man was also taken to Northwestern in serious condition, and a 28-year-old woman was taken to St. Joseph Hospital, where her condition was stabilized, police said.
It was not clear if the victims or anyone with them returned fire.
Sources say Weekly's faction has been in a long-running feud with the Black Disciples, particularly in an area roughly bordered by 58th and 66th streets, and St. Lawrence and Calumet avenues on the South Side.
Weekly recently made a rap video "where he made derogatory statements toward deceased members of the Black Disciples," according to the department advisory, which states that may have been why he was shot Tuesday.
Among those insulted in the video was Odee Perry, namesake of the O-Block faction of the Black Disciples. Weekly belonged to the Tookaville faction of the rival Gangster Disciples, named for a young man killed in the same conflict not long before Perry, according to police.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Weekly had been "livestreaming his travels through the city and he was found."
"What we're seeing is a manifestation of a larger problem, which is that way too many young men, and particularly young men of color, have access to guns and are willing to use those guns to settle petty grievances," she said.
Lightfoot also diminished the musical success of Weekly, whose rap videos have received millions of page views. "My understanding of that is, this was an individual who fancies himself a rapper but is also a member of a gang," she said. "There's been an ongoing conflict between his gang and another."
Weekly's older brother Jermaine Robinson was shot and killed in a double homicide in Woodlawn on the South Side in 2017, according to police and Weekly's Apple Music biography. Robinson was also a rapper who performed under the name FBG Brick.
The biography describes other violence in Weekly's life. "He was stabbed by a girlfriend and (had) multiple rivalries with other gangs and rappers," it states.
If Weekly were killed in retaliation for the video, it would be the latest instance of gang violence linked to rap music in Chicago.
In 2012, Joseph Coleman, an 18-year-old rapper who went by the name "Lil JoJo," was shot and killed in the South Side's Englewood neighborhood. Chicago police investigated whether a war of words between Coleman and other rappers through music, or social media, led to his killing.
Among his rivals was rap star Chief Keef, who was accused of taunting Coleman in a tweet in the hours after his death. Chief Keef claimed, though, that his Twitter account had been hacked.
In 2015, rapper Young Pappy, whose real name was Shaquon Thomas, was gunned down in the Uptown neighborhood, a week after a video posted online showed him making fun of a rival gang while pretending to hold a gun in his hands.
The 20-year-old Thomas was allegedly part of a Gangster Disciple faction that had been feuding with another GD faction on the North Side. Prior to his death, Chicago police said Thomas was a target in at least two other shootings in the Rogers Park neighborhood that left two people dead, a 17-year-old boy at a McDonald's restaurant and a photographer who was waiting for a bus.
In 2017, a South Side rapper "Shootashellz," whose real name was Cedron Doles, was gunned down after taunting gang rivals, some of them already dead, with his rap lyrics. Doles' death in the Auburn Gresham community ended up being part of an investigation by Chicago police and the FBI into an internal gang conflict within the Black P Stones.
