The attacker was masked, and police have not found any motive. Massiv was shot in the shoulder and was treated in an emergency room. On his request, he was released shortly afterwards.

“He had recovered a little bit. However, on Wednesday evening he got much worse,” Massiv’s mother told Berliner Zeitung.

There has been speculation about rivalry between native Berliner gangster rappers and Massiv, who is a newcomer to the capitol. Violence in German gangster rap, however, has not approached the level of violence reached by the infamous East Coast-West Coast wars experience by American gangster rap a decade ago. Before this incident, disputes in German rap were mostly confined to “disses” – verbal disputes. Other observers have tied the shooting to the release of Massiv’s new single. None of these speculations have been substantiated.

Some observers have made accusations that the shooting was a PR stunt. The rapper, however, has denied these allegations, “Presumptions in this direction are cynical, inhuman and perverse,” said Massiv in a press release in Berlin. “It is completely absurd to assume that somebody can come up with an idea that somebody could stage such an action.”

Massiv one of a new wave of German gangster rap and is signed by Sony BMG. Similarly to the American gangster rap, German artists rap about their lives in disadvantaged urban districts. German gangster rap is largely populated by second and third generation immigrant youth. Massiv is the son of Palestinian refugees from Lebanon.