Rapper Huey, best known for debut single Pop, Lock & Drop It, shot dead in St Louis

A St Louis rapper who went by the stage name Huey was killed in a shooting that also wounded another man, authorities say. St Louis County police said in a news release that the shooting happened just before 11 pm on Thursday outside of a home in the 8100 block of Martin Luther King Boulevard in Kinloch, Missouri. Police received the call on 25 June that a man had entered a nearby hospital suffering from at least one gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead shortly after. Police identified the man who was killed as 32-year-old Lawrence Franks Jr, known by fans as Huey. According to police, an unidentified second victim, age 21, remains hospitalised with non-life-threatening injuries stemming from the same incident. Police reported that as many as ten other individuals were present at the time of the shooting and are urging anyone with information to come forward. [caption id=“attachment_8532271” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Rapper Huet. Twitter/@BlancoTarantino[/caption] The Kinloch native was best known in the rap community for his 2006 debut single, ‘ Pop, Lock & Drop It.’ It eventually reached the No 6 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The music video has more than 50 million hits on YouTube. He was previously signed with Jive Records, which went defunct in 2011. He also signed a second album titled Redemption in 2010 before he signed with Waka Flocka Flame’s Brick Squad in 2013 after seemingly being off the grid for years, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch. He told the outlet at the time, “I’m doing me now, examining life and my situations, things I see and been doing. It’s about the struggle of me and my career. The music is versatile. It’s hood, it’s street and it’s urban pop.” He added, “The critics were stating Huey was done. I never let them dictate my future. I kept working hard. The more they told me I couldn’t do it, the more I wanted to.” Huey also noted that he was surprised that his breakout hit from his first album, titled ‘Notebook Paper’ was such a career-defining song. He explained at the time, “I was never that guy — that ‘Pop, Lock & Drop It’ guy. That was just a record that worked. I never thought it would be the record for me, but it was. And with that happening, it got in the way of what I wanted to be looked at as.” (With inputs from agencies)