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NEW YORK (AP) — An up-and-coming rapper was among several people arrested Wednesday in an investigation into a series of gang-related shootings and drug trafficking in the city.
Ackquille Pollard, who performs under the name Bobby Shmurda, was taken into custody shortly after he left a recording studio near Radio City Music Hall in midtown Manhattan.
Pollard, 20, is named with other defendants in an indictment that will be unsealed after their arraignments Thursday, said Kati Cornell, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor. She declined to detail the charges.
Chad Marshal, another aspiring hip-hop artist known as Rowdy Rebel, was arrested inside the recording studio where police also recovered handguns, authorities said.
The Brooklyn-born Pollard is best known for the hit song "Hot Boy" and for a music video that popularized a dance move called the "Shmoney dance."
A "Hot Boy" video posted on YouTube in August has been viewed tens of millions of times, and Pollard performed the song for a national television audience this month on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."
"My music is straight facts," Pollard recently told New York Magazine. "There are a lot of gangsters in my 'hood."
Pollard's criminal history included two arrests for gun and drug possession, authorities said.
The names of attorneys for Pollard and Marshal weren't immediately available.
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