THE LOOP — Two friends of South Side rapper Lil Durk have been gunned down in Chicago in the last month, and the Def Jam MC posted a photo memorializing the young rappers Monday.
Durk, whose album "Signed to the Streets" comes out this week, has posted "RIPs" for Jerome "Jmoney" Wood and Leonard "L'A Capone" Anderson on Twitter. He posted a photo of the two young men — also rappers — Monday with the words "#repost my squad."
Jerome Wood, 21, was shot to death Sept. 2. His nephew, 3-year-old Deonta' Howard, was wounded in a mass shooting in Back of the Yards a few weeks later. Sources said the "Brick Squad" gang faction, a South Side band of the Vice Lords, P Stones and Gangster Disciples, was involved in the Back of the Yards shooting.
About a week after the mass shooting, another young rapper with a connection to Lil Durk was gunned down.
Leonard "L'A Capone" Anderson, 17, was shot and killed Sept. 26 while leaving a South Shore recording studio, his mother said.
After Anderson's shooting, Durk tweeted "Rip lil bro." Anderson's funeral was over the weekend.
Lil Durk, whose real name is Durk D. Banks, is a convicted felon and was a part of rapper Chief Keef's crew. He was arrested in June and charged with illegally having a .40-caliber handgun.
Police say both Chief Keef, an Interscope Records star, and Lil Durk are members of the Black Disciples street gang.
Prosecutors have said that Chief Keef, 17, is a member of a faction of the Black Disciples gang known as "Lamron" — the street name "Normal" spelled backward. Authorities say it's a gang reference to a stretch of Normal Boulevard in Englewood, Chief Keef's old neighborhood.
The album cover art for "Signed to the Streets" features a drawing of the rapper, along with a gun, a Chicago Police car and crime scene tape. One commenter had a message for Durk on the photo Monday:
"You live by the gun you die by the gun!"
