Ol' Dirty Bastard dies
Russell Tyrone Jones — Wu-Tang Clan's most unpredictable voice and one of the most influential vocal stylists in 90s hip-hop — collapses at a Manhattan recording studio and dies at 35. The Office of Chief Medical Examiner attributes the death to an accidental overdose of cocaine and prescription tramadol.
Why it matters
Russell Jones, who recorded as Ol' Dirty Bastard in the Wu-Tang Clan, collapsed at a Manhattan recording studio on November 13, 2004, and died at 35. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death an accidental overdose of cocaine and prescription tramadol. ODB had been, since the early 1990s, one of the most unpredictable and most influential vocal stylists in rap. The voice was a strangled, half-sung, half-yelped instrument unlike anything anybody had used on a rap record before. The persona was a deliberate refusal to take the conventions of MC seriousness seriously. "Brooklyn Zoo," "Got Your Money," "Shimmy Shimmy Ya." Solo debut Return to the 36 Chambers in 1995. He had spent the years between 1998 and 2003 in legal trouble, in jail, on the run, and back in jail. He was working on a comeback record (A Son Unique) when he died. Wu-Tang did not record together as the original nine after he was gone. You cannot replace a voice like that. There has not been another voice like it.
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