Trugoy the Dove, member of the hip-hop trio, De La Soul, has died, according to reports as well as the group’s official Instagram account.
The cause of death has not been disclosed at this time. Trugoy, born David Jolicoeur, was noticeably absent from the Grammy Awards’ hip-hop tribute performance last week that featured De La Soul groupmate Posdnuos.
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Jolicoeur’s death comes less than a month before De La Soul’s music would premiere on Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services. The group battled with their former record label, Tommy Boy Records, for years over legal and publishing issues that kept their music off streaming services.
Reservoir Records acquired Tommy Boy Record’s master recordings in 2021 and made a deal with De La Soul to add their first six albums to streaming services on March 3.
Jolicoeur formed De La Soul with Kelvin “Posdnuos” Mercer and Vincent Mason, aka DJ Maseo, while still in high school in Long Island, N.Y., in the mid-1980s. The trio was known as hip-hop radicals and prided themselves on going against the grain of a hip-hop scene that was becoming more masculine and materialistic in the mainstream.