Mystery shrouds rapper’s death

MONTREAL – Nearly 48 hours after his body was discovered in an industrial area near the Lachine Canal, police were still refusing Sunday night to identify hip hop artist Paul Frappier as Montreal’s seventh homicide victim of 2011.

While officials remain tight-lipped about the dead man’s identity, Frappier’s family and friends confirmed it was his body that passersby found lying at Richmond and William Sts. early Saturday.

"What really hurts is that I don’t understand the reason for this; we just don’t know why," said Frappier’s father, Pierre Frappier.

Messages from Frappier’s thousands of fans have been pouring onto social media sites in memory of the 33-year-old musician, who went by the stage name Bad News Brown and whose trademark instrument was the harmonica.

"There’s just no reason for this to have happened," said Henry-Francois Gelot, Bad News Brown’s manager and president of the label Trilateral Entertainment. "He may have been at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Frappier was adopted from Haiti as a child and reared by a Quebec family. He overcame internal conflicts, including a struggle with dyslexia, to become a motivational speaker for youths and a self-taught musician opening for artists like Snoop Dogg, Kanye West and 50 Cent. With an impending EP and movie release next month, many believed he was on the verge of a career breakthrough.

Carla Beauvais, a friend and his publicist, said that on the evening of his death, Frappier was with his girlfriend (he was separated from the mother of his soon-to-be-3-year-old son) until about 10 p.m. He told her he was going out to meet someone. About midnight, police arrived at her door with news of his death. They had found the address on his body.

Police are not confirming reports that the victim had been both beaten and shot, but have said there were obvious signs of violence on the body. As of late yesterday, they had no suspects.

Frappier, who is also survived by his parents and four siblings, had his dark moments in the past, friends and family members said. But he became a respected artist with no known enemies, they said. He went out of his way to help others, personally securing minor parts for 25 friends in Quebecois director Michel Jette’s soon-to-be released film Bumrush.

Jette said in a statement yesterday that he was "in shock" over Frappier’s death. In addition to demonstrating his natural acting talent as the gangster Loosecanon in BumRush, Frappier had been a "major ally" in producing the film, Jette said. When the film is released, it will be dedicated to his friend, he added.

Frappier, author of the 2009 song Born 2 Sin, found music at a difficult time in his life. While he’d taught himself to play the harmonica given to him by his maternal grandfather, he performed mostly as a freestyle rapper.

Then, thanks to a chance encounter with an elderly woman who commended Frappier on his harmonica playing, he developed a new passion for the instrument. He began a career as a Montreal street busker and adopted his stage name.

"He worked himself up from the metro to nightclubs to some full stadiums," Gelot said. "He was full throttle in his music."

Bad News Brown also made a point of sharing his life experience with youths. As part of the Music With Meaning tour, he spoke to an audience of teenage boys in 2009 at Shawbridge, a youth detention centre operated by Batshaw Youth Services.

"They were pretty into it," recalled Steev Blackett, a Batshaw worker. "They wanted his autograph."

ALLISON LAMPERT; PAT DONNELLY, T’CHA DUNLEVY AND MONIQUE MUISE contributed to this report