Trugoy the Dove (born David Jude Jolicoeur), the co-founder of the legendary Hip-Hop group, De La Soul, has died. A rep confirmed his death to The Grio. He was 54.
A cause of death has not been revealed, though AllHipHop reports he'd been struggling with his health for the past few years, and that in 2018, he opened up about his battle with congestive heart failure. He was also notably absent during the Grammy Awards’ Hip-Hop tribute performance last week that featured De La Soul groupmate Posdnuos.
A groundbreaking group, De La Soul helped usher in an influential wave of alternative Hip-Hop acts as members of the Native Tongues collective. Wholly settled in their own left-of-center creativity, their smart, eclectic offerings — 1989's classic 3 Feet High and Rising, 1991's De la Soul Is Dead, and 1996's Stakes Is High among them — are landmark Hip-Hop albums that established their storied legacy.
De La Soul had recently been in the news because their first six albums are finally set to arrive on streaming services, on March 3. The announcement was a long time coming, preceded by years of tussling with their old label and lawyers to regain their masters. Late last week, Questlove urged fans to "support the soul" to help De La's catalog hit the top 10.
"This is my life man," he wrote. "March 3rd cannot get here fast enough. I’m buying all 6 [De La Soul lps 10 times over EACH. We owe it to them. & the fact that they took a stand & won their masters. For all of us complaining about the quality control in hip hop—-NOW is the time to vote with our dollar.
Earlier this year, De La Soul told ROCK THE BELLS they were happy everything is finally settled. "We finally got it and we can move forward with our lives and continue to establish and keep this relationship with our fans," Maseo said. "It had been so long we’ve been saying, ‘We’re coming, we got it, we got it.’ I don’t want it to ever come off like we’re lying so people just give up, sounding like the boy who cried wolf. It’s finally coming to fruition. The journey still continues and I’m still excited on where this journey is going ‘cause it’s still going. The car just parked for a second. Now we got some maintenance and some gas and we back out.”
This is a developing story.
