Timbaland’s Former Rap Partner Magoo Dead at 50

Virginia rap pioneer and Timbaland’s former collaborator Melvin “Magoo” Barcliff has reportedly passed away at the age of 50.

Details surrounding the rapper’s death have not been made public. Timbaland and Magoo met as teenagers in Virginia, and they later collaborated on their first album, Welcome to Our World, in 1989. The album featured their highest-charting song together, “Up Jumps da Boogie.” They released two more albums together, Indecent Proposal in 2001, and Under Construction, Part II in 2003. The albums were re-released in 2021 as part of  Blackground Records signing a distribution deal with Empire Records.