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HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Family members of Houston rappers known as Kenny Lou (Kenyan Tennessee) and Ghost (Nicholas Esene) confirm that the two men were killed in a double-murder in the parking lot of Club Onyx overnight.
It happened around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, when a security guard heard gun shots outside. When he went out to check, he found two men sitting inside a Mercedes car, dead from several gun shot wounds.
Your barber knows you. Paul Stevenson, better known as Junebug, has cut Kenny Lou's hair since Kenny was a boy. He knew he was trying to go from bad example to role model through his music. "If you don't know him, you would think he's a bad person. But he's not. He's not."
He was actually one of the first to learn that the young rapper had died in a hail of bullets outside Club Onyx early Tuesday morning. He rushed to the scene. It had the making of a hit. According to police, the killers came up behind the Mercedes Kenny Lou and Ghost were sitting in and opened up.
“Multiple gunshots. Multiple casings on the ground," said Detective Sgt. Thomas Simmons.
Police say there's good surveillance video. There were guns in the car, but they never stood a chance. The killers slipped away into the darkness, but surveillance cameras did see what happened.
Ghost's real name was Nicholas Esene, and he had a four-year-old girl.
"I wasn’t expecting to see my brother like that. I'm at a loss for words," said his sister Alleana Greene while still kneeling on the ground, too weak with grief to stand.
Kenny Lou had a felony record and was a known gang member, but as his rap career gained traction, he was trying to slip away from street life. He recently performed in several local schools and those performances drew heavy criticism from police. Two weeks ago, he defended those appearances and his attempts to mentor students.
"You can still do good. Even though you have a past, a bad past, it's never too late to change your life," he told FOX 26 in an exclusive interview.
But his past may have caught up with him Tuesday morning. Junebug hopes that maybe Kenny Lou's violent death can teach the lesson he was trying to when he was alive -- gang violence and street life can lead to heartache and death
"It's not the way. It's not the way for anybody, because in the end, everybody loses. Their family loses. Your family loses. Everybody loses."