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,” Quah’mir Cruz gasped, as his younger sibling desperately carried him to an ambulance, the victim’s family told the Daily News Tuesday.
Cruz was shot in the chest on Blake Ave. near Mother Gaston Blvd. in Brownsville around 1 p.m. Sunday, cops said. No arrests have been made.
His younger brother, Daiveon Cruz, 17, was cleaning his bedroom when he heard Quah’mir had been wounded and rushed to the scene.
“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 Quah’mir 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,” Daiveon said. “Honestly, I’m not OK. It’s just crazy. That was my best friend. My first friend.”
Several hundred friends and relatives gathered to mourn Quah’mir at a vigil on Tuesday outside the Van Dyke Houses, where the victim lived with his family, just steps away from where he was killed.
“My heart is broken into pieces,” his mother, Danielle Cruz, said at the vigil. “I miss him so much. I feel like a piece of me is gone.”
Quah’mir, 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 total combined views on YouTube.
Drill rap is a subgenre of hip-hop with lyrics that often focus on gang rivalries that 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 Quah’mir’s family defended his 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 Quah’mir’s stepfather, Shaun Davis. “Drill rapping is a way of rapping. It’s not a lifestyle. It’s not him.”
Quah’mir 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 Quah’mir had recently earned his OSHA safety-training 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 Quah’mir’s promise as a performer was evident from a young age.
“From when he was small, he had potential,” Traci Moore said of the victim, who joined the 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 Quah’mir entertaining a small crowd gathered at the basketball courts outside the Van Dyke Houses, singing “Mr. Telephone Man” and “Candy Girl” while channeling 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 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.”
“Sometimes we get pulled in with negative things,” the victim’s mom 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.”
