Dominic Grant

Dominic Grant, who performed under the name Nick Breed, was a young Baltimore artist whose voice and songs resonated beyond his Edmondson Village neighborhood. At 24 he had already built a local reputation for a calm delivery, melodic sensibility, and lyrics that acknowledged the city’s struggles while urging an end to the violence that affected his community.

Friends and collaborators remembered Grant as an inspirational presence to younger people in his neighborhood. He worked with other Baltimore artists and filmmakers; his music videos reached a wide audience online, with some uploads earning tens of thousands — and in at least one case hundreds of thousands — of views. Those projects reflect a musician who took his craft seriously and sought to use it as a platform for positive influence.

Public comments and social posts from 2018 show Grant speaking about his hope to see Baltimore’s murder rate fall, and his music often walked the line between describing harsh realities and advocating for nonviolence. People who knew him described him as a rising talent whose work spoke to the lived experience of his city and to young people looking for alternatives to street life.

On October 21, 2018, the life and promise of Dominic Grant ended when he was shot in Southwest Baltimore and later pronounced dead. His death sent shock and grief through the local music community and among neighbors who had seen in him an example of creativity and ambition. While public records and news coverage document the circumstances of that night, those facts do not capture the human connections he made: the collaborations with fellow artists, the hours spent crafting songs and videos, and the encouragement he offered youth who saw in his progress a route to something beyond the immediate hardships of the neighborhood.

Though a formal, family-published obituary matching the exact death date was not found in the public funeral-home record during this research, Dominic Grant’s impact is visible in the tributes, news coverage, and the music he left behind. Remembering him means honoring the work he made, the people he inspired, and the simple fact that a young life was cut short while trying to lift up others through art.