De La Soul co-founder Trugoy the Dove dead at 54

Vincent Mason, David Jude Jolicoeur and Kevin Mercer of hip-hop trio De La Soul pose for a portrait, circa 1990. Photo / Getty Images

David Jude Jolicoeur, known widely as Trugoy the Dove and one of the founding members of Long Island hip-hop trio De La Soul, has died. He was 54.

His representative Tony Ferguson confirmed the reports on Sunday. No other information was immediately available.

In recent years, Jolicoeur had said he was battling congestive heart failure, living with a LifeVest machine affixed to his person. De La Soul was part of the hip-hop tribute at the Grammy Awards last week, but Trugoy was not on stage with his fellow bandmates.

Jolicoeur was born in Brooklyn but raised in the Amityville area of Long Island, where he met Vincent Mason (Pasemaster Mase) and Kelvin Mercer (Posdnuos) and the three decided to form a rap group, each taking on distinctive names. Trugoy, Jolicoeur said, was “yogurt” backwards. More recently, he’d been going by Dave.

De La Soul’s debut studio album 3 Feet High and Rising, produced by Prince Paul, was released in 1989 by Tommy Boy Records and praised for being a more light-hearted and positive counterpart to more charged rap offerings like N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton and Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, released just one year prior.

Sampling everyone from Johnny Cash and Steely Dan to Hall & Oates, De La Soul signalled the beginning of alternative hip-hop. In Rolling Stone, critic Michael Azerrad called it the first “psychedelic hip-hop record”. Some even called them a hippie group, though the members didn’t quite like that.

In 2010, 3 Feet High and Rising was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for its historic significance.

They followed with De La Soul Is Dead in 1991, which was a bit darker and more divisive with critics, and Stakes is High in 1996.