Overview
- The Associated Press reported Thursday that his lawyer said he died in Pennsylvania of prostate cancer.
- The Hip Hop Alliance issued a statement that honored his role in shaping the culture and acknowledged the community’s difficult conversations about his legacy.
- A Bronx native born Lance Taylor, he founded the Universal Zulu Nation and helped take hip-hop worldwide with 1982’s “Planet Rock,” which fused electronic sounds with breakbeat DJing.
- Since 2016, multiple men accused him of sexually abusing them as teenagers, he left Zulu Nation leadership, and a New York judge entered a default civil judgment in 2025 after he failed to respond to a lawsuit alleging abuse and trafficking.
- Funeral plans were not announced, and remembrances alongside renewed debate over how to remember his contributions and the allegations spread across hip-hop circles.