hip-hop

Earl Simmons, better known as the rapper DMX, died Friday at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, N.Y., according to a statement from his family. He had been on life support for the past few days following a heart attack. He was 50.

DMX is in the hospital on life support after suffering a heart attack. The rapper's lawyer, Murray Richman, told The Associated Press on Saturday evening that DMX was admitted to New York's White Plains Hospital and that "he's quite ill."

Murray did not confirm reports that the 50-year-old rapper and actor had overdosed on drugs. He did not say what caused the heart attack.

DMX's agency did not respond to NPR's emailed request for comment.

Armand Hammer's music takes patient ears to decipher. There's a dexterity to it; social commentary is swaddled in layers of thick poetry and equally dense production. Yet the approach cuts both ways: If you get the music, you love it, but it can be tough to comprehend for those who don't already have a palate for the rappers' pondering flows.

Just a few short years ago, Benny The Butcher was the underdog of Griselda, the Buffalo, N.Y.-based rap crew that was, at the time, decidedly underdog itself. The group's upstate New York home town has little-to-no hip-hop history, especially compared to its bigger cousin, New York City, about a six-hour drive south.

Mac Phipps, the New Orleans-area rapper who has been in prison since being convicted on charges of manslaughter in 2001, was recommended for clemency this week. The recommendation for immediate parole by the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole puts the rapper, who has maintained his insistence that he is innocent of the crime he was accused of, one step closer to freedom.

It was less a specific dance sequence and more of a stylistic template: a pliant sway, a kind of two-step dressed up with silky swagger. The Shmoney Dance, 2014's viral craze, juxtaposed with the grimy lyrics of 19-year-old rapper Bobby Shmurda's breakthrough hit "Hot Boy," rocketed the kid from East Flatbush into pop culture's stratosphere. But then, just as quickly as he'd entered the spotlight, he disappeared.

Michael Turner — better known as Double K, rapper and producer in the Los Angeles duo People Under The Stairs — died Jan. 30 of unspecified causes. He was 43. A friend, DJ Mark Luv, shared the news via Instagram, writing that Turner "passed away peacefully." An examination by the LA County Medical Examiner-Coroner has yet to be performed.

Sometimes, rumors are all we have to go by. The one about a new Madlib record, Sound Ancestors, started in late October: The British producer Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet, who's spent the last few months of quarantine releasing new music and excavating old tapes as part of audio-visual mixes on his YouTube page, mentioned that he and Madlib, the Los Angeles beatmaker born Otis Jackson, Jr., had been working on an album together.

Daniel Dumile, the rapper and producer best known as MF DOOM, died Oct. 31, according to a message posted on his Instagram account by his wife, Jasmine Dumile on Thursday. No cause of death was given. He was 49 years old.

Jasmine Dumile's post reads: