Incognito, who was stabbed to death in Camberwell, was apparently victim of attack by so-called postcode rivals

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Gang violence claimed another life in London on Wednesday when a drill music rapper was stabbed to death, apparently the victim of an attack by so-called postcode rivals.

Two other people were airlifted to hospital after being stabbed in the same incident, which happened in a street in which a teenager was shot dead last May.

The rapper who died, Siddique Kamara, had himself been cleared of murder after an Old Bailey trial earlier this year.

He subsequently spoke about the relationship between drill music and youth violence, saying: “The crime that’s happening right music does influence it. You’ve got to put your hands up and say drill music does influence it.”

He added, however: “Knife crime and gun crime has been going on way before drill music … 10 years, 20 years, people were still getting cheffed up [attacked with knifes]”.

“There [are] many ways to solve it – you can bring out youth clubs, you can bring out many other things, invest money in other things to help the community, but you don’t want to do that – you just want to use an excuse with drill music.”

Kamara, 23, was pronounced dead shortly after the attack outside the seven-storey block of flats on a housing estate in Camberwell, south-east London, where he lived with his parents.

A man of 31 and a 16-year-old boy were injured. Two men were arrested nearby on suspicion of murder and remain in custody.

On Thursday, two areas on the estate were sealed off and police had erected a small white tent over the area where Kamara was found.

Kamara rapped under the name Incognito as a member of Moscow 17, a drill group based around Camberwell. Another member, Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, 17, suffered fatal gunshot wounds in the same location last May.

Moscow 17 have been engaged in a long-running violent feud with a group calling itself Zone 2, from Peckham, a neighbourhood immediately to the east of Camberwell.

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The feud has been fuelled – and made public – through the posting of so-called “diss tracks” on YouTube and other platforms, in which the two rival gangs can be heard taunting each other.

In one track, Moscow 17 urged members of Zone 2 to “check the scoreboard” – count up the number of stabbings – and asked: “How you gonna make it even?” In response, Zone 2 posted a song telling their rivals that they would “roll up and burst them”.

A video of one of Moscow 17’s songs, Moscow March, appears to be among a small number of drill videos that have been taken down by YouTube at the request of Scotland Yard. A video of a Zone 2 track, Zone 2 Step – which was filmed on the housing estate where Kamara lived and died – had also been taken down.

Kamara and an 18-year-old were arrested in June last year and charged with murdering Abdirahman Mohamed, 17, in Peckham. Mohamed was the brother of a Zone 2 member, and the court heard that had been murdered because he had laughed at the 18-year-old a few days earlier, when he saw him being arrested by police while in possession of a samurai sword.

Kamara told the jury that he had been deliberately misidentified, and he and the 18-year-old were acquitted.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Floral tributes are left in Warham Street, where the attack took place. Photograph: Kirsty O'Connor/PA

Within hours of Kamara’s death on Wednesday evening, a compilation of some of his music had been compiled and posted on YouTube. “Best of Moscow 17 Incognito RIP” read the caption at the start of the video. “Stabbed to death and word is Rampz and Screwloose were injured too …”

Very quickly, hundreds of comments were posted beneath it. A number of people wrote “allow it” – don’t worry about it.

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One person wrote: “Zone 2 have won this beef Moscow man need to dead it and hop off this beef.”

Posting as “mr T”, another person wrote: “When I see this my heart jumped in my throat ... all we can do is pray no one else gets got.”

Reporting last month on attempts by criminologists, sociologists and youth workers to make sense of apparently “senseless” youth violence, the Guardian found that many have concluded that gang members are traumatised and fearful, and that some of the most vulnerable youths are frequently the most dangerous.

