PHILADELPHIA — A member of the popular former Philadelphia singing group Brotherly Love, which had celebrity fans and once performed for President Barack Obama, was fatally shot outside his South Philadelphia home Wednesday night, police said.
Joelil Foy, 26, was sitting on the steps of his rowhouse on the 1800 block of Sigel Street just before 7 p.m. when a gunman approached and began shooting, police said. Foy was struck in the neck, and was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died about 20 minutes later. The shooter was not apprehended.
Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said Thursday that investigators were not yet sure of a motive, and were still collecting evidence including surveillance video in an attempt to piece together what happened.
Vanore said there was another shooting on that block of Sigel Street on Monday, but detectives don’t believe the two incidents are related. In the earlier shooting, police said, a 30-year-old woman was shot in the foot in what Vanore called an accidental discharge on the street. The woman was hospitalized in stable condition, he said.
Foy, a father of two with a third child on the way, was previously part of a five-singer group of young men known as Brotherly Love, which largely sang a cappella harmonies and saw peak fame in the mid-2010s.
In 2014, they sang a backstage tune for Obama, a clip of which went viral. They performed on "The Queen Latifah Show," at Wawa Welcome America, and gained celebrity fans like Kevin Hart, Jay-Z and Meek Mill.
Foy’s family could not be reached Thursday. His older brother Jauan, who was also a member of Brotherly Love, shared on Facebook that the loss was “unexplainable,” and said “every memory that we shared together has replayed in my head over and over and over again.”
“My brother was the most amazing person in my life and I carry that with me now and forever,” he wrote.
Will Little met Joelil when he was only 12 years old, when he and his two brothers joined Little’s youth mentorship program at the barbershop near their South Philadelphia house.
“I watched him grow up, his rough times, his struggles, his successes,” said Little, a life coach. “He had grown into a good man, a good father.”
Joelil was the quietest of the Foy brothers, Little said, but the trio was nearly inseparable and all shared a talent for singing. As the boys worked to get noticed, Little would sneak them into open mic nights and poetry competitions, he said.
Eventually, the boys were signed by music manager Charlie Mack and formed Brotherly Love. But around 2019, the group broke up, Little said, and the young men struggled to find direction with music and pursued other careers.
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