A new mural will be unveiled this weekend in North Side celebrating Braxton Trenae Baker, a Richmond-born rapper who performed as Brax and made a major splash on social media before her death last year at age 21.

The unveiling is to take place from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 5, at 213 W. Brookland Park Blvd., on the east wall of the building where Da Spot Recording Studio is located.

Richmond muralist Jason Ford created the portrait of the talented artist whose popularity soared on music streaming sites in 2017 following the release of her first project “VERSE(atility)” that she released on Soundcloud.

Known for her high energy, Brax was working on two albums and three novels when she died on Nov. 2, 2020. She also was building her own fashion brand.

Essence magazine labeled her a social media influencer due to the size of her audience. She reportedly had 113,000 followers on Instagram, her preferred platform, when she died. Medical examiners determined Brax died from cardiac arrhythmia.

Brax’s mother, Letricia L. Russell, stated in a social media post announcing her daughter’s death, “There were no scratches, there were no bruises. It was a spiritual release. God retrieved the angel he loaned to us.”

In a 2018 piece posted on her sister’s blog, “The Good Girls Movement,” Brax wrote an emotional essay about being raped to help other women heal from their trauma of sexual assault. “This is better than any song I’ve ever written,” she wrote

in posting the essay to her Instagram page. Brax was a graduate of the Henrico Center for the Arts at Henrico High School, where she won recognition for her ability to dance, her vivacious personality and her ambition to be famous.

Fashion was a major interest, with her Instagram page filled with modeling photos and videos she directed.

“My role is to create art straight from the heart,” she told a magazine interviewer. “For I know that art will be pure, poetic, powerful and healing. All I want to do is help the world heal. That’s when things will begin to shift.”