Kevin Fret’s death: a hate crime?

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The first openly homosexual trap singer had already been the victim of aggression of all kinds on several occasions because of his sexual orientation

Seven years have passed since the famous rapper Frank Ocean declared himself openly homosexual. After him, more artists such as Kevin Abstract, Taylor Bennett and iLoveMakonnen, among others, decided to make their orientation public, according to the I am Rap site.

Leer en español: Muerte de Kevin Fret: ¿un crimen de odio?

The list has grown over the years, but it had been limited to the United States scene, there was no openly homosexual Latin American urban artist, until Kevin Fret, trap singer who was making his way in American music until his murder.

At 5:31 am on January 10, Fret was killed by 8 shots he received on Eduardo Conde Avenue in Santurce, the most populated neighborhood of the Puerto Rican capital, while riding a motorcycle.

The Republic of Peru emphasizes that, after being found by police officers, it was first thought of a traffic accident, and when he saw the wounds, he was transferred to the Río Piedras Medical Center in San Juan, where he died. The biggest difficulty so far is that the two policemen who saw the suspect have different versions about his appearance, so it will take the process to have a spoken portrait.

The motive of his murder is still unclear, but the authorities handle several lines of investigation as the most likely. The director of the Homicide Division of San Juan, Lieutenant José Cruz Marrero said: "We still do not have a cell phone, it could be a robbery, a meeting with an ex-partner or someone with whom we shared or a hate crime, we are not closed at no angle " as quoted by the newspaper Primera Hora.

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A brief, but meteoric career

With just 24 years of age, his career of less than a year of success was cut abruptly. His first hit, "Soy así", launched in April 2018, accumulated more than 730,000 visits in 9 months, doubling the number on YouTube after his death.

He lived in Miami and from the beginning he showed himself as someone who was openly living his orientation, becoming an icon and activist of the LGBT community in his country. In this regard, he told Paper magazine: "I do not care what people have to say about me, I'm going to act like that, with my blond hair, my black nails, showing my gut, shining from head to toe", as The Nation of Argentina quotes.

The obligatory question: Was it a hate crime?

In social networks and the press, there is constant mention of the possibility that Kevin Fret's crime is due to hatred. The Nation also highlights the growing violence in Puerto Rico, where the murder of Fret was the 22nd of the year, when just 10 days had passed, a high figure for the country. If added to this, the fact that Fret had no belongings or identifications when it was found, cannot rule out the theft as mobile. However, the violence with which he was murdered, eight shots, makes one wonder if his sexual orientation was the reason.

Therefore, the Cybercrime Division of the Puerto Rican Police investigates the videos and comments on the artist's social networks to find something that could indicate more clearly the mobile, for example, threats or insults, said José Cruz Marrero according to Primera Hora.

In addition, two events occurred last year, the first, a series of attacks between Fret and another artist, Anuel AA, who attacks him in a song for being homosexual; the second, an attack of which Fret was a victim also by its orientation, affirms the Republic.

These facts stand out as examples of the constant attacks that the victim claimed to receive, despite which he did not change his lifestyle or his activism with the LGBT community. Except for the genre of pop, in Latin America, there's almost zero acceptance and opening when talking about sexual orientation: regional Mexican music, rock, and urban music are characterized by their machismo and homophobia, which is why Kevin Fret was breaking a wall that is now cracking.

LatinAmerican Post | Luis Angel Hernández Liborio

Translated from "Muerte de Kevin Fret: ¿un crimen de odio?"