Chart-topping rapper XXXTentacion is shot dead at 20, after a fast and violent rise to fame

XXXTentacion, the troubled 20-year-old rapper whose grim, often suicidal rhymes propelled him to the top of the US chart just months ago, was shot dead Monday in Florida in a possible robbery, authorities said.

The rapper, whose lyrics were filled with insecurity and whose real life was repeatedly marred by violence, was gunned down in his black BMW i8, in broad daylight near a motorcycle store in Deerfield Beach north of Miami, the Broward County sheriff’s department said.

The artist whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. He becomes one of the biggest names in hip-hop to be killed in recent years after a slew of targeted slayings in the 1990s.

The rapper, who was born and lived nearby, was leaving the Riva Motorsports store when two armed suspects approached him, with at least one opening fire, the sheriff’s department said.

The pair raced off in a dark SUV and are wanted by authorities, it said.

“Investigators say it appears to be a possible robbery,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.

The celebrity news site TMZ, which first reported the shooting, said that the two suspects snatched a Louis Vuitton bag from the rapper’s vehicle.

Sporting spiked-up dreadlocks and often covering his face with a black-and-white masquerade mask, XXXTentacion rose suddenly to fame more than a year after putting out the song Look at Me! on the sharing site SoundCloud.