Baltimore mourns rapper, activist for peace

BALTIMORE — The news tore across Twitter: A beloved Baltimore rapper was gunned down in broad daylight, moments after promoting peace on the streets at a charity fundraiser.

Hundreds of inner-city youths — the people most exposed to Baltimore’s pernicious gun violence — have mourned Tyriece “Lor Scoota” Watson as one of their heroes since his death on Saturday.

Scoota was a local radio star poised for bigger things. The original mix of his biggest hit, “Bird Flu,” boasts of drug dealing, hooking desperate addicts on his brands of “scramble, coke and smack.”

And yet, at 23, he was becoming an unlikely activist for peace in the streets, recording public service announcements and reading to schoolchildren about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

“How am I supposed to live with all this death in my sight?” he rapped in another hit, “Ready or Not.”

Scoota was shot in what police called a “targeted attack” Saturday evening by a still-unidentified triggerman who fired directly into his car. A special police number for text messages has received hundreds of tips, but investigators didn’t announce any suspects as of Wednesday.

“He was just scratching the surface of whoever he was going to end up being,” said Aaron Maybin, who does youth outreach with The Stokey Project, which sponsored the charity basketball game Watson played in just before he died.

“Where would Malcolm X be if he was killed at 23? Our leaders were born one thing and evolved into something else,” Maybin said.

Police spokesman T.J. Smith aimed his comments at anyone seeking to avenge the rapper’s death.

“If you’re looking at this from a retribution standpoint, it’s a waste of time; we’ll be back up here talking about you and your friends,” he warned.

“This revolving-door death is despicable,” Smith added. “We’re tired of it, and we just hope that this has affected enough people so that they’ll say ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

Watson’s slaying does stand out, even in a city so used to bloodshed.

Scoota’s music earned him respect as someone who could represent the African-American community to a much wider audience.

His friends and family, backed by police and community leaders, held a news conference Wednesday before a statue of singer Billie Holiday, who survived her own youth in Baltimore.

“He was not just a reporter of what happens here in Baltimore,” said Derrick Chase, a community leader who knew Watson personally. “Lor Scoota was a mirror, and what he did was use his platform to take the message of Baltimore all over the world.”