https://www.instagram.com/kjballa_/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4sfOIkcXQ4ygE65tkwrsI2
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...pay-story.html
A rising Brooklyn rapper was gunned down in a drive-by shooting, becoming the borough's third hip-hop artist to die violently since February, police said Saturday.
Kennedy Joseph Noel, 23, known by his rap name KJ Balla, was shot in the chest by a gunman who squeezed off five shots from a passing car on Bradford St. in East New York about 9:45 p.m. Friday, cops said.
No arrests were made in the killing near New Lots Ave., and Noel died at Brooklyn University Medical Center after taking the bullet.
'He's never coming home,' sobbed Noel's distraught mother Valencia Smith as she was comforted by mourning family at their home on East New York Ave. 'He was my only son!"
A 26-year-old man with the rapper was shot in the back, stomach and arm, but managed to get himself to Brookdale and was expected to survive, cops said.
KJ Balla was a co-founder of his label Nothing Records and his rap songs were streamed on Spotify more than 80,000 times, according to reports.
In his latest video 'Back to Back,' posted online last month with rapper Jay Gwuapo, the hip-hop hopeful boasted about how he couldn't 'die in the street.'
'Keep a TEC when I ride in the street, I cannot die in the street, so I hop in the booth and I ride on the beat,' he rhymed.
The rapper was about a mile from his home when he was shot, and his mother denounced the killers as 'cowardly.'
"Jealousy and envy overtook your hearts and took a very important piece of my heart,' she said, as if speaking to her son's murderer. 'I'm so heartbroken. It'll never be the same for me.'
Noel's close-knit family was home when they heard about the nearby shooting, said his aunt Jacqueline Smith.
'Somebody had called my niece and told her check on KJ, they said he got shot," said Smith, 53. 'As soon as we heard everybody just ran to the hospital."
The night before Noel's death, the family gathered to celebrate the birthday of KJ's sister, his aunt said. The birthday decorations still hung in the kitchen as family mourned in the apartment.
'We were always together, the family," she said. 'For this to happen, I can't even imagine. This just hurts bad."
Despite his lyrics about gunfights and street violence, relatives said the Grand St. Campus High School graduate avoided trouble as he focused on his music career, and was a born performer.
'He used to dance on the trains when he was little,' said his mother. 'Then he started rapping. He was very charismatic. He was really into his rap career, waiting for it to take off.'
Two weeks ago, 21-year-old rapper Nick Blixky was shot to death on Winthrop St. near Rogers Ave. in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. And In February, Brooklyn artist Pop Smoke was fatally shot in Los Angeles during a home invasion in the Hollywood Hills.
Detectives are investigating a possible link between Pop Smoke's murder and the death of Nick Blixky, whose real name was Nickalus Thompson. No arrests were made in either case, and Noel's death did not appear to be connected to the two other homicides, police sources said.
'They're going to be found out,' Noel's aunt said about his killer. 'Witnesses say they saw someone in a dark hoodie fleeing.'
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