Rapper Tommy Hill was shot and killed in Philadelphia earlier this week, according to a report by AllHipHop.com.

The MC, real name John Wilson, was a member of the well-known local hip hop group R.A.M. Squad.

According to the report, on late Thursday night or early Friday morning, the rapper was exiting Reuben’s Marc, a bar on Stenton Avenue and Mount Pleasant in the Mt. Airy area of Philadelphia. “He was in a bar having a good time and afterwards they shot him and robbed him,” an unnamed source said. “The dudes he was with shot back, security came out and it was a hectic situation.”

The source said that Tommy Hill died from his wounds in a Philadelphia hospital sometime over the weekend.

The Richard Allen Mob (R.A.M. Squad) was a Philadelphia hip hop crew whose popularity peaked in the late '90s. Named after the notorious Richard Allen Homes housing projects, the group featured members Tommy Hill, Boy Backs, Suave, 6’9 and Wiz Gam. They've recorded with prominent artists like Nelly and Sticky Fingaz and released several albums, including Operation Lock the City in 1996, Thee Album Regardless in 1997 and their major label debut, Random Access Money, in 2001 on Universal. The latter contained R.A.M. Squad’s most successful single, “Ballers (Up in Here).”

Tommy Hill was a controversial figure on and off wax, with mounting legal issues. In 2003, Hill was charged with selling 51 grams of crack cocaine to a government witness wearing a wire. He pleaded guilty to the charges. In February he was arrested for attacking a woman at a Northwest Atlanta Wal-Mart. He was also allegedly a close associate of Philly mob boss Skinny Joey Merlino. Many speculated that Tommy cooperated with the government, but group member Boy Backs later admitted on camera that he was the informant who set him up.
The source speculated that rumors that Tommy Hill was a "snitch" may have prompted the shooting.
“He thought he was where he was safe and it turned ugly on him,” the source told AllHipHop.com. “To make it worse, word is they were like, ‘What was this rat ass ni**a doing up here in the first place and he got his stuff on?’ It is what it is. It could have been anything. He told on the Mob."

Tommy Hill had allegedly relocated to Atlanta and was trying to make a musical comeback. He renamed himself Tommy Butta and made some noise last year for dissing fellow Philadelphia rap star Beanie Sigel, calling him a "rat." In one video, Tommy was filmed in front of Beanie Sigel’s New Jersey apartment taunting him.

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