An 18-year-old drill rapper gunned down on Mother’s Day outside his home at a Brooklyn NYCHA complex died uttering his brother’s nickname.
“DaiDai, DaiDai,” Quahmir Cruz gasped, as his younger sibling desperately carried him to an ambulance, the victim’s family told the Daily News on Tuesday.
Cruz was shot in the chest on Blake Ave. near Mother Gaston Blvd. in Brownsville around 1 p.m. Sunday, cops said.
His younger brother, Daiveon Cruz, 17, was cleaning his bedroom when he heard Quahmir had been wounded, and rushed to the scene, he said.
“When I found him, I had to carry him and put him on the stretcher,” Daiveon said. “He kept saying my nickname. He was saying, ‘DaiDai, DaiDai.’”
Medics transported Cruz to Brookdale University Hospital, but he could not be saved.
“To know that he’s gone and I can’t do nothing about it, it really hurts me,” said Daiveon. “Honestly, I’m not OK. It’s just crazy. That was my best friend. My first friend.”
Friends and family gathered in their hundreds to mourn Quahmir at a vigil held on Tuesday outside the Van Dyke Houses, where the victim lived with his family, and just steps away from where he was killed.
“My heart is broken into pieces,” the victim’s mother, Danielle Cruz, said at the vigil. “I miss him so much. I feel like a piece of me is gone.”
Cruz, who rapped under the name Boe Quahh, was featured in music videos, including “Backdoor B’z,” “Top 4” and “OE Anthem,” which received more than 125,000 combined views, in total, on YouTube.
Balloons are released for slain drill ripper Quahmir Cruz in the Bronx on Tuesday. (Roni Jacobson / NY Daily News)
Drill rap is a subgenre of hip-hop with lyrics that often focus on gang rivalries and has been associated with numerous fatal shootings, including that of Sincere Jazmin, 16, a Queens drill rapper gunned down in a dispute with a rival teen in March 2025.
But Quahmir’s family defended the slain rapper’s character, saying he should not be defined by his sometimes violent lyrics.
“They got this concept of him being a drill rapper and being a negative person, but it’s not that,” said Quahmir’s stepfather, Shaun Davis. “Drill rapping is a way of rapping. It’s not a lifestyle. It’s not him.”
Quahmir worked two jobs, including a gig in construction and another job at the Van Dyke Community Center, where he engaged with neighborhood kids through an anti-violence program, according to an executive at the community center.
“(The victim) would talk to us about his desire to not get ‘lost on the streets’ and he was working every day to make sure that didn’t happen,” said Valerie Barton-Richardson, president and CEO of CAMBA, which operates the community center. “We at CAMBA are saddened beyond belief that our community, our city and our world will never get to see how brilliant his light would have shined in the decades to come.”
Barton-Richardson said that Quahmir had recently earned his OSHA certificate and was working with CAMBA staff to update his résumé just a week before he was killed.
“His dream was to put me and his mom in a mansion,” the victim’s stepfather said at his vigil. “He didn’t want people putting flowers and balloons in the air. He didn’t want this.”
A former after-school teacher at the Van Dyke Community Center said that Quahmir’s promise as a performer was obvious from a young age.
“From when he was small, he had potential,” Traci Moore said of the victim, who joined the Van Dyke Community Center’s after-school program when he was 8 years old. “He was such a lovely boy, very talented and respectful. For me, he was just very sweet. Would greet me when he comes in.”
A video posted on Facebook shows a younger Cruz entertaining a small crowd gathered at the basketball courts outside the Van Dyke Houses, singing “Mr. Telephone Man” and “Candy Girl” while evoking Michael Jackson with his dance moves.
“He was an incredible young man,” the victim’s grandmother said at the vigil. “That’s all I can say. The last time I spoke to him was on my birthday when he told me he loved me.”
At the vigil on Tuesday — held at the same basketball court where he sang and danced as a child — friends and family held orange and white balloons, while playing his more recent songs, including “Pain” and “Overthinking.”
“You know, sometimes we get pulled in with negative things,” the victim’s mother said. “My baby was smarter than that. But I ain’t gonna preach. I’m just gonna pray, and I want y’all to promise to God, my boy is gonna be remembered. Because after the storm is over, it still continues for us. This is my reality. My baby is gone.”