West Philadelphia rapper Leaf Ward arrested near King of Prussia Mall, charged with three felonies

As Philadelphia’s underground drill music scene took off in the late 2010s, Khalif Ward made a name for himself in the hyper-local hip-hop subgenre.

On Spotify, the song “Risk Takers” that Ward released under the moniker Leaf Ward has been streamed more than a million times.

In the comment sections below his YouTube music videos, Ward’s boasts are met with liberal use of fire emojis, dropped by devoted fans who claim Ward to be one of the city’s top talents.

This week, those fans were calling for Ward to be released from prison.

Upper Merion Township Police arrested the 26-year-old rapper at a restaurant next to the King of Prussia Mall on Wednesday evening, the latest in a series of jailings of drill stars that have shaken the scene’s fan base.

Ward was charged with three felonies, court records show, including possessing a firearm that he was barred from owning because of a prior conviction.

He was also charged with evading and resisting arrest, recklessly endangering another person, providing false identification to law enforcement, and several drug-related misdemeanors.

He’s being held in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility on $150,000 bail.

As the news circulated on social media, details began to emerge about the chaotic foot chase that led to Ward’s arrest outside the Bahama Breeze restaurant.

Upper Merion Police said they’d been tipped off by surveillance cameras that a black Dodge Challenger reported stolen in Philadelphia in July was traveling toward the restaurant, driven by Ward.

According to the report, Ward was drinking at the bar with a woman when police called a tow truck to remove the vehicle. Noticing the commotion, Ward went outside, saw the officers, and ran back inside the restaurant.

After dashing through the kitchen and ditching a black, Glock .40 caliber handgun with an extended magazine, Ward was ordered to the ground at taser point, police said.

Ward allegedly told officers that his name was Omar Washington. Officers say they recovered a plastic pill bottle labeled “Bumfeet” from the Challenger as well as a white plastic bag that police said resembled MDMA, or ecstasy.

Ward had numerous active arrest warrants sworn out against him, according to police, including one from the joint gun-violence task force of/the state Attorney General’s Office and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office for felony weapons offenses.

Ward’s arrest comes as drill music has found steady popularity among younger Philadelphians in recent years. Its fans parse the lyrics and music videos of their favorite neighborhood artists, who document vivid tales of street violence and real-time conflicts between local rivals as they rap over warbling, bass-heavy beats.

That intersection between music and violence has given the genre a dangerous allure. It has also led to the loss of some of its well-known talents, such as Anthony Watson, better known as Blumberg Geez, who was killed in North Philadelphia in June.

This spring, rapper Asyir Clark, known as Lil Bape, was charged with murder for fatally shooting a 16-year-old.

Those instances where boasts result in real-life violence have, in turn, drawn criticism from politicians and community leaders who denounce the genre as an accelerant of the gun violence epidemic plaguing under-resourced communities.

Dubbed as the last decade’s “most important rap subgenre” by music outlet Pitchfork, drill is also prized as a creative outlet for young artists to portray the realities of life in urban poverty.