Witnesses recount Jimmy Wopo’s killing

Rapper’s death came on cusp of his big break

After the shots, there was silence.

Hill District residents and business owners peered out of windows and doors along Wylie Avenue and saw a white SUV stopped in the road. No commotion, no shouting, no more gunfire — just silence.

“I heard, ‘Pow! Pow! Pow!’” a man who works as a jitney driver and asked not to be identified recalled Tuesday. The shooting occurred right outside his stand at Wylie Avenue and Duff Street about 4:20 p.m. Monday.

After the shots, he hesitated, then peeked outside — catching sight of a red truck as it sped away. He saw a young man running from the white SUV, clearly not sure what direction was safest, and then nothing else. The rest of the street was empty.

The jitney driver called 911 and reported a shooting. He didn’t know then that his longtime customer, 21-year-old Travon Smart, better known as rapper Jimmy Wopo, was in the driver’s seat, shot in the head.

“If I knew it was him, I’d have run out to the car,” he said. “But it was weird, because nobody

was out here. Normally, there are a whole bunch of people standing in front of the bar and on the street, but I guess it was so hot yesterday that no one was out.”

Farther up the street, another business owner also heard the shots, which he thought were firecrackers. He, too, stepped to his door, saw the white SUV and the empty, quiet street.

“I thought nothing about it and went and sat back down,” he said, also declining to give his name. But within minutes, a young man ran up to his shop and fell to his knees outside, crying — and he realized that something had happened after all.

Soon, Pittsburgh police swarmed the scene. Wopo wasrushed to UPMC Presbyterian, where he died. A second man who was with Wopo was injured in the shooting. His name has not been released, and no arrests havebeen made in the case.

Wopo was an up-andcoming rapper who was set to sign a contract soon with Taylor Gang Entertainment, the label founded by Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa, in a deal that would have sent him on a 27-date tour beginningin July.

He was also deeply entrenched in the city’s street life, the jitney driver said.

“He didn’t have the greatest past,” he said. “He was violent in the street life. One day I had him in the back [of the car] and some guy called him and said, ‘Did you shoot up my mother’s house?’ and he told the guy straight up, ‘Listen. I don’t shoot people’s houses. I don’t do that. But if you come to my grandmother’s house and shoot at her house, I’m telling you, you’re in trouble.’ Needless to say [the guy] didn’t come down there.”

The jitney driver remembers Wopo as full of life, driven and passionate about his music, a leader who always made time for his young fans. Both Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller, another Pittsburgh rapper, posted condolences and remembrances on social media Tuesday as the news of Wopo’s death spread. Hundreds of other fans, family and friends joined the chorus.

Some called for justice, some for revenge. Many lamented that the rapper was killed on the cusp of his big break.

“He was definitely into the street life,” the jitney driver said. “But he was changing, he really was, because his star was shining.”