Shock G (Digital Underground) dies
Gregory Jacobs — Digital Underground frontman, the alter-ego architect of Humpty Hump, the producer who introduced Tupac Shakur to the world on Digital Underground's 'Same Song' — is found dead in a Tampa hotel room. He was 57. Toxicology subsequently attributes the death to an accidental overdose.
Why it matters
Gregory Jacobs, who recorded as Shock G and as Humpty Hump in Digital Underground, was found dead in a Tampa hotel room on April 22, 2021. He was 57. The cause was an accidental drug overdose. He had been touring and performing into early 2021. Shock G is the producer and lead voice behind Digital Underground, the Oakland group whose 1990 LP Sex Packets is one of the great party-rap albums of the early 90s and contains "The Humpty Dance," which has the cultural staying power of a holiday standard at this point. Shock invented the Humpty Hump alter-ego (fake nose, fake glasses, funny voice) as a way to play with rap-persona seriousness from the inside. He also made one specific decision that shaped the next ten years of West Coast rap: he gave a young Marin City kid named Tupac Shakur his first verse on a Digital Underground song called "Same Song" in 1991. Tupac was a Digital Underground roadie at the time. Shock G put him on a song. You know what happens next. You should also know who started it.
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