Legendary hip-hop artist Dave Jolicoeur of De La Soul has passed away at the age of 54.

Details related to Dave’s death are limited at the moment, but the rapper was dealing with congestive heart failure in the past, which he openly spoke about. Dave’s journey found him being hospitalized again in 2020, which the artist addressed with his groupmates via Instagram. 

David Jude Jolicoeur was born September 21, 1968, in Brooklyn, New York. Raised near East Massapequa on Long Island, it was there that Joliceour befriended Mercer (Posdonus) and Vincent Lamont Mason Jr. (Maseo) with Jolicoeur becoming known as “Trugoy” for his love of yogurt (spelled backwards). Upon forming De La Soul in high school, the rappers hastily recorded a demo of “Plug Tunin’,” one of their earliest tracks, which caught the attention of Stetsasonic member and then-bourgeoning hip-hop producer Prince Paul. Together with Paul and fellow “Native Tongue” clique friends such as A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip and Jungle Brothers (both of whom performed on “Buddy”), De La Soul crafted its first album, “3 Feet High and Rising,” into an aural masterpiece.

Sadly, his death comes just weeks before the pioneering hip-hop group’s key catalog will finally become available on streaming services. Their 1989 album, “3 Feet High and Rising,” is universally recognized as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, but has been held back from streaming services due to longstanding legal battles over sample clearances and other matters. The group in many ways was a guinea pig for laws around sampling, which was a new field at the time of the album’s release, but quickly became one as the owners of the rights to songs sampled on the album sued the group and its label at the time, Tommy Boy Records.

Their poetic, sample-heavy, collage-like brand of hip-hop and humorous skits was winningly psychedelic and against the grain of the often violent and/or misogynist lyrical tropes common in the era’s rap songs.