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Dave Jolicoeur has passed away, AllHipHop reported. The unfortunate news was trending No. 1 on Twitter during the Super Bowl pregame show.
His sudden death on Sunday was also confirmed by The New York Times, and reported by the group’s publicist, Tony Ferguson.
The details surrounding Trugoy’s death are unknown but in 2018, it was revealed on an Instagram video that he was struggling with congestive heart failure.
During a rap era where mainstream hip-hop glorified gun and gang violence – similar to today where trap and drill music are seen as the least commercially viable subgenres – acts like De La Soul, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, Run DMC and Black Sheep provided conscience commentary, different perspectives and abstract approaches to the music genre.
The late 1980s was when hip-hop acts like Public Enemy and NWA were tackling police brutality. In a hostile time of racial injustice, De La Soul’s peace-positive debut album 3 Feet High and Rising became the alternative hippie voice of reason in hip-hop, with its trippy floral designs.
The trio led a refreshing and new direction in the genre, being one of the most influential hip-hop groups of its generation with singles like “Me, Myself, And I,” “Say No Go” and “Eye Know,” only reaching as high as No. 24 on the Billboard 200 chart.
3 Feet High and Rising entered in the Library Of Congress and, according to AV Club, is one of the “best albums of the 20th century.”
De La Soul’s jazzy and progressive sound made it stand out from the crowd of New York’s competitive hip-hop scene, with Trugoy, a Brooklyn-born, South Shore Long Islander who was Haitian-American, making up one-third of the group’s iconic trio.
He was born on September 21, 1968.
High school friends and fellow band members Vincent, “P.A. Pasemaster Mase,” Mason and Kelvin “Posdnuos,” Mercer are surviving members.
Another alias for Posdnuos, Trugoy, and P.A. Pasemaster Mase are Plug One, Plug Two and Plug Three, respectively. It was an early concept that the group’s music was being transmitted from Mars by three microphone plugs.
After years of battling former record label Tommy Boy Records, the group is expected to make their music available for streaming on March 3, a legal and publishing dispute prevented De La Soul from streaming services, Hip Hop Wired reported.
According to the group’s website, the group is scheduled to tour in the U.K. in April, but these plans might change.
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