In the East New York section of Brooklyn, 23-year-old Kennedy Joseph Noel, a male, was an emerging rapper known by his stage name KJ Balla. His life was cut short on the night of May 22, 2020, in a drive-by shooting. The incident occurred just a mile from his home on Bradford Street near New Lots Avenue. Noel was struck in the chest and rushed to Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Another 26-year-old man who was with him at the time was also shot and injured but survived.
From a young age, Noel was a charismatic performer, starting as a dancer on trains before transitioning to a rap career that was beginning to gain traction. He co-founded his own label, Nothing Records, and some of his songs had been streamed tens of thousands of times. His mother, Valencia Smith, described him as being deeply focused on his music, waiting for his career to take off. The motive for the shooting was not immediately clear, though investigators suggested it could be related to ongoing gang disputes in the area. Witnesses reported seeing someone in a dark hoodie fleeing the scene after the shots were fired.
In the months following the shooting, the investigation took a complicated turn. Police identified a man named Hassan Brown as a person of interest in Noel's murder. However, before any charges could be brought, Brown himself was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in June 2020. This led to further speculation about the intertwined nature of the violence.
Subsequently, an associate of KJ Balla, Anthony Williams, was linked to the death of Hassan Brown. Federal investigators alleged that Williams was the driver of the car used in Brown's fatal shooting. While he was not charged with murder, Williams faced federal charges for being a felon in possession of ammunition related to a separate, non-fatal shooting that occurred a couple of days before Brown's death. Prosecutors also claimed Williams was involved in another shooting the day after Noel's murder, though they did not confirm if it was a retaliatory act. To date, no arrests have been officially announced for the murder of Kennedy Joseph Noel.
