KILLED FOR HIS BLING
Los Angeles drill rapper gunned down in the Bronx
A Los Angeles drill rapper was gunned down Thursday night in the Bronx for his gold chain, which carried his signature nameplate — Moneygang Vontae — police sources said.
Avanti Frowner, 27, who raps under the Vontae stage name, was in New York City to film a music video later in the month when a pack of thieves tracked him to the Amazing Community Pharmacy on E. Tremont Ave. near Arthur Ave. in Tremont at about 1:40 p.m. Thursday, police sources said.
Vontae stepped outside to buy pot from the suspects, who followed him into the pharmacy and held him up, sparking a struggle, law enforcement sources said.
Surveillance footage obtained by the Daily News shows Vontae
and a man wearing a white T-shirt and white do-rag struggling inside the pharmacy as a terrified employee crouched behind the counter.
As the man forcefully pulled Vontae to the ground, three other
suspects stormed the store and piled on top of him while drug store employees ran down a staircase into the basement.
The employee crouched behind the counter moved to the back of the store while one of the men hit Vontae over the head with a long umbrella.
The do-rag-wearing man fumbled with a gun before he shot the drill rapper several times.
As Vontae lay on the floor bleeding, the gunman fired another shot into his chest before taking off with the massive “Moneygang Vontae” nameplate from his neck, cops said. “There were about three shots, and I saw the guys running away from the pharmacy,” a witness told The News. “They robbed him. One of them had his chain.”
“One of the guys had a gun and he put it in the pocket of his shorts as they ran away,” said the witness, who wished not to be named.
EMS rushed Vontae to St. Barnabas Hospital, but he could not be saved.
Vontae was staying at a hotel on Webster Ave. near the pharmacy. A friend from California accompanied the rapper.
“Yesterday they came in the morning and they left and they did not come,” said the hotel’s front desk clerk, Vick Sid. “They never came back.”
Sid said Vontae’s friend returned to the hotel at 7 p.m. the day of the shooting and told him, “My friend was killed.”
“I said What happened? He asked me to check the YouTube. He told me he was killed in the pharmacy,” Sid said.
A short time before his death, the drill rapper posted photos of himself in the Bronx, the massive nameplate around his neck.
“I Got Use to Counting So Much Money I Got Paper Cuts,” Vontae wrote on Instagram.
Fans mourned his loss on social media.
“I really hope all this s--- a dream gang,” one commented.
The drill rap music genre continues to capture police attention. Rappers belittle and call out rival gang members in their songs, fueling gun violence across the city, police say.