King Louie Recovering After Gunshot to Head

Chicago rapper King Louie is recovering after being shot in the head at the city’s Ashburn neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon. The rapper was shot while in his vehicle at 3:30 p.m. local time and brought to Chicago’s Advocate Christ Medical Center in stable condition. King Louie’s management confirmed to the Chicago Sun-Times that the rapper was “awake and talking” following the incident.

Chicago’s Fox 32 added some more details from the shooting, reporting that the 27-year-old King Louie, born Louie Johnson Jr., was grazed with a bullet when someone opened fire on Louie’s car at the intersection of 83rd and Pulaski. A police spokesperson told the Chicago Tribune that the rapper was sitting in his vehicle when someone stepped alongside the car and shot King Louie in the left side of his head.

“I believe in the power of prayer and I believe my brother Louie gone be ok. Send prayers to him in his battle,” Chance the Rapper tweeted after news of King Louie’s shooting spread.

A mixtape darling and one of the key figures in Chicago’s drill movement, King Louie slipped into the mainstream when he contributed a verse to Kanye West’s Yeezus track “Send It Up.” More recently, the rapper appeared on “Familiar,” a cut on Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment’s Surf, Rolling Stone‘s fourth best rap album of 2015.

King Louie is also credited with coining the word “Chiraq,” a colloquial portmanteau that likened Chicago’s gun violence to Iraq. Spike Lee borrowed the phrase for his recently released film about Chicago, drawing criticism from Chance the Rapper as well as King Louie, who dropped a song titled “Fuck Spike Lee.”

King Louie has not yet commented about the shooting incident on social media.

In October, King Louie joined Chicago rappers like Common, Lil Herb, Saba, Tree, Noname Gypsy and more on “Put the Guns Down,” an interactive music video that aimed to curb gun violence in the Windy City.