Kevin Fret, a rising star on the Latin trap scene, was shot to death in San Juan early on Thursday morning. He was a month shy of his 25th birthday.
“There are no words that describe the feeling we have and the pain that causes us to know that a person with so many dreams has to go,” his manager Eduardo Rodriguez said, in a statement. “He still had a lot left to do.”
Fret was reportedly shot at eight times while riding a motorcycle in the Santurce neighbourhood. He was hit at least twice, including once to the head, and was pronounced dead at hospital.
Police are investigating his murder, which may have been motivated by hate. Fret was openly gay and gender-nonconforming. Last June, he was arrested in Miami after allegedly throwing a bottle at a man he claimed taunted him about his sexuality in an elevator.
In his debut music video, for “Soy Asi (I’m Like This),” he wields a gun.
Puerto Rican writer and activist Samy Nemir Olivares told The New York Times that Fret "represented a refreshing view in a music genre that is very homophobic and very machista."
“I’m going to act like I don’t give a damn about what anybody has to say,” he told Paper magazine last year.