$50,000 Reward Offered in Slaying of Up-and-Coming Rapper

A $50,000 reward was announced Thursday in the unsolved case of an up-and-coming rapper who was gunned down in South Los Angeles last year.

On Dec. 8, Brandon Fields - who went by "Young B the Future" - had just come home from work when two men in a gray sedan drove by and fatally shot him in his driveway, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Detectives say he had no gang connections.

"He was killed not by foreigners but by members of our own community," LAPD Capt. Peter Whittingham said.

Fields's family stood with LAPD South Bureau criminal gang homicide detectives Thursday to announce the reward for information leading to his killer.

"I want you to look me in my face, and I want you to experience and to see the hurt that you have caused and hopefully something will trigger in your mind to say that lives do matter," said Fields's mother, Phyllis.

Fields had begun to make a name for himself on the rap circuit. Just a month before he died, he won the "Rookie of the Year" and "Battler Rapper of the Year" awards at the Gladiator School in Atlanta, Georgia - a program sponsored by Snoop Dogg.

Snoop Dogg had just begun to mentor the Fields when he died; his family says the famous rapper covered all of Fields's funeral expenses.