Police are looking for suspects after a Toronto-based rapper was fatally shot in a hail of gunfire in downtown Friday morning.

Twenty-five-year-old Shmar Parris, who also went by the rap name “Murda Marz,” was shot in the chest and rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead, Toronto EMS said.

Parris’ family told investigators that the young man was a rapper. Parris had been featured on the music website hiphopCanada.com as an up-and-coming artist.

Police say Parris lived in Toronto, but his Facebook page lists his hometown as North Preston, Nova Scotia.

Parris was known to police, and the attack was not random, Det. Sgt. Steve Ryan told CTV Toronto He declined to expand on the victim's past.

Police were called to the area of Mutual and Gould Streets at about 2:30 a.m., after receiving several 911 calls reporting sounds of shots fired.

As an officer responded to the first call, several other calls came in about a car that crashed into a pole at Parliament and Carlton Streets, Ryan said.

Ryan said that police believe the initial shooting took place at Gould and Mutual, then a person or people chased the victim's vehicle in an SUV. The SUV drove off when the victim crashed his car into a lamppost.

"It was at that location that we found a male, deceased, slumped over the driver's side of his car," Ryan said.

Another man and a woman were in the car at the time of the shooting, he said. Both fled the scene in a taxi, leaving the victim behind to die.

Police said they believe the woman, in her mid-20s, was sitting in the front passenger's seat of the victim's vehicle at the time of the shooting. She made her way to a nearby hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to her upper body. The man was sitting in the back of the car and wasn't hurt, Ryan said. Both are cooperating with police.

At least seven bullet holes were visible along the driver's side of the victim's Chevrolet Malibu, which had crashed into a lamppost on the sidewalk at the intersection of Parliament and Carlton streets. Eight bullet holes were visible in the front passenger's side window and the rear window on the same side was shattered.

"It's a pretty brazen attack," Ryan said. "I believe it to be a drive-by."

Parliament Street was closed from Carlton Street to Gerrard Street East, and Mutual Street was closed at Gould Street as police investigated the scenes.

There are no details on suspects or potential witnesses at this time, but police are looking for a light-coloured SUV seen driving erratically southbound on Parliament Street and then westbound on Gardiner Expressway at 2:30 a.m.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at 416-808-7400416-808-7400 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477416-222-8477 (TIPS). Tips can be left online or on Facebook, or witnesses can text TOR and their message to 274637 (CRIMES).

Witness account of the shooting

A Ryerson University student who lives nearby told CP24 that she heard approximately five shots, and looked outside to see vehicles fleeing the scene. The cars headed north on Mutual Street then turned east on Carlton Street, she said.

"It sounded kind of like fireworks," the woman said of the initial gunshots. "That really got my attention and then I heard (tires) squealing."

The student, who wished to remain anonymous, said she heard about three more shots after the vehicles turned onto Carlton.

With files from The Canadian Press