Friends and fans are mourning the death last Friday of Markland Anthony Campbell, a reggae artist and one-third of Canadian hip-hop group Half Size Giants (HSG). He was 42.
Campbell was shot in the chest in Ottawa’s busy ByWard Market and died in hospital.
Police have arrested 18-year-old Donald Musselman in connection with the shooting. Investigators believe Campbell was targeted.
On Instagram, HSG said Campbell had rushed to the Market to defend his teenage daughter, who had called him to say she was being harassed by two men.
“Markland was maliciously gunned down defending the principle of righteousness he lived by,” read the statement.
Campbell’s last Instagram post, on June 1, was a video clip showing him freestyling while driving to Toronto.
In an interview on campus radio station CHUO hours before he was killed, Campbell promoted the new HSG single “Girl You Know” featuring Danny Fernandes.
Born in Jamaica, Campbell moved to Canada at an early age. He formed what would become HSG – in which he was known as Jahiant Jahn – in the early 1990s with school friends Christopher Wiens and William Moreno.
The trio’s debut Maple Flava On Cruise Control featured a track produced by Maestro Fresh Wes and, in 1993, they opened for Snow at Ottawa’s Civic Centre.
Campbell then focused on reggae music. In 2017, he told the Jamaica Star that his song “Them Shoot The Youths” was about “injustice all over the world.”
Late last year, HalfSizeGiants announced they were reuniting after 15 years, with the single “Life Moves Fast.”