A rapper on the Murder Inc. label was shot to death on a Queens street corner Thursday night, fueling fears of a new violent rap war.
The ambush of D.O. Cannon, whose real name is Gerard Fields, came four days after the strikingly similar fatal shooting of a less-accomplished rapper who ran with Murder Inc.'s rivals.
Fields, 26, was gunned down as he stood in front of an abandoned storefront at 177th St. and 104th Ave., a known drug location.
Police said a man in a gray sweat suit walked up to Fields just after midnight and let his gun do all the talking, hitting the rapper twice in the chest and once in the leg.
As the gunman fled in a cream-colored car, Fields' friends threw the bleeding rapper into a black Volvo and sped to the emergency room of Mary Immaculate Hospital, where they abandoned him before cops arrived, police sources said.
He died a few minutes later.
Police were not ruling out the possibility that Fields' slaying could be related to Monday's fatal shooting of Shadaha (Jah) Bey, who was often seen with rap superstar 50 Cent's crew, GUnit.
Bey, 26, was shot to death on the corner of Guy Brewer Blvd. and 104th Ave. in Jamaica - a few miles from where Fields was killed.
Bey's father, Yusef, said his son was a G Unit rapper who worked security for 50 Cent.
"This has to stop," Yusef Bey said from his South Carolina home yesterday. "It has to stop within the community."
Public feud
Yesterday, two memorials with votive candles and graffiti "RIP" scrawls marked the blood-stained sidewalks where Fields and Bey died miles apart.
Murder Inc. and 50 Cent have been involved in a fierce, very public feud.
Murder Inc.'s most popular artist, Ja Rule, has written lyrics mocking 50 Cent as a stool pigeon: "So on ya grave its gon' read: Here lie Fifty, who snitched on many."
50 Cent repeatedly has taunted Ja Rule in his lyrics and said the hit song "Wanksta" is about his nemesis.
"We have not made a connection, but we are investigating both shootings very carefully," said a police source.
The source said detectives say Fields may have been shot in retaliation for trying to shoot a man named Vincent last week. That incident was not reported to police.
"We believe the victim attempted to assault someone and was killed as an act of retribution," the source said.
Fields - who has served two prison sentences for armed robbery, including the sticku
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