Lil Marlo, a Rising Atlanta Rapper, Is Shot and Killed at 30

Rudolph Johnson, the up-and-coming Atlanta rapper known as Marlo, who loomed large among his city’s rap heavyweights even as he remained an underground figure and ambivalent local celebrity, was shot and killed there on Saturday night, the police said. He was 30.

The Atlanta Police Department said that officers had initially responded to a single-vehicle accident on I-285, west of downtown, around 11:30 p.m. and discovered the driver deceased, with gunshot wounds.

“At this time, investigators believe the victim was the intended target of the gunfire and they are working to determine the circumstances surrounding the shooting,” the police said in a statement.

The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed on Sunday that Mr. Johnson had been killed. The shooting came amid a rash of gun violence in Atlanta in recent weeks, following a turbulent period of protests against the police killings of Rayshard Brooks there and George Floyd in Minneapolis. “It has to stop,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said last week.