A New York City rapper who was finally seeing his music gain national attention was shot and killed inside his apartment by his 16-year-old stepson during an argument over smoking marijuana, police said. Jamel Davis, 43, who performed under the stage name Sinthoro Upper, was struck in the chest and arm at the New York City Housing Authority Walt Whitman Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on April 12, 2026, just weeks after 50 Cent gave his breakout track a major boost on social media.
The shooting occurred around 10:50 a.m. inside the family’s apartment on Cumberland Walk near Carlton Avenue. Medics rushed Davis to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His stepson, Tristan Hightower, fled the scene and was taken into custody in the Bronx on April 21, nine days later.
A Text Message That Turned Deadly
The fatal confrontation, investigators say, was sparked by a text message. Davis’ longtime girlfriend — the suspect’s mother, who is three months pregnant with Davis’ child — texted her son asking him to stop smoking marijuana inside the apartment because she was worried about the health of her unborn baby.
The teenager denied he had been smoking, and the exchange quickly escalated into a shouting match. According to Davis’ brother, Geo Miller, 40, the boy began berating his mother and calling her names, prompting Davis to get out of bed and intervene.
“(The victim’s stepson) was being so disrespectful, calling her some names,” Miller told the New York Daily News. “That’s what got my brother out the bed, to say, ‘Hey bro, why are you talking to your mother like that? If you wasn’t smoking that’s fine but you don’t need to talk to her like that.'”
Police say Hightower then retreated to his bedroom, retrieved a handgun he had been hiding in a shoebox and opened fire, striking Davis once in the chest and once in the arm. The teen fled the apartment and disappeared.
Arrest in the Bronx
Hightower was arrested in the Bronx on April 21. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the teenager appeared “very disheveled, like he’s been out on the street since the incident,” when officers caught up with him.
Kenny said that Hightower had two prior domestic incident reports involving his mother in 2025. In one of those incidents, the mother told officers her son had access to a firearm — believed to be the same gun later used to kill her boyfriend. The teen has been charged with murder and criminal possession of a loaded firearm. Whether he will be prosecuted as an adult or a juvenile has not yet been determined.
Kenny said it remained unclear whether Hightower had the weapon on him at the time of the arrest, noting that a warrant was required before officers could search his backpack.
A Career on the Brink of Liftoff
Davis’ death came at the worst possible moment for an artist who had spent decades chasing a break. His track “Slidin” had broken through, picking up regular spins on local hip-hop stations and drawing co-signs from some of the genre’s biggest names. On March 16, 50 Cent featured the song in an Instagram reel — a moment Davis described with disbelief on the “Talk Ya Talk” podcast just three weeks before his death. Lloyd Banks, Rich the Kid, Fredro Starr, and even boxer Zab Judah also publicly threw their support behind the track.
“He was finally getting the recognition he worked for,” a close friend told HOT 97. “The radio just started picking him up. This was his moment.”
A Mentor Mourned by His Community
Davis and Miller grew up without a mother or father, and the rapper’s hard-won climb made him a familiar and beloved figure in the neighborhood. Friends and family said Davis served as a mentor to local teens and helped organize community basketball tournaments. He had been with his girlfriend for roughly eight years, and the baby on the way would have been his third child. He leaves behind a 16-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son.
In the days following the shooting, mourners assembled a makeshift memorial outside Davis’s building, lining the sidewalk with candles, flowers and handwritten notes. Neighbors described a man whose impact reached far beyond his music — a people person who connected with kids, mothers and grandmothers alike.
