David Jude Jolicoeur, the rapper and producer who rose to fame as a member of De La Soul under the stage name Trugoy The Dove, has died. A representative for Trugoy confirmed the news to All Hip Hop but did not reveal a cause of death, though Trugoy had suffered from health problems including congestive heart failure in recent years. He was 54.

Trugoy, also known as Plug 2, was born in Brooklyn in 1968 and grew up in East Massapequa on Long Island. Attending high school in Amityville, he met Vincent Mason aka Maseo and Kelvin Mercer aka Posdnuos, with whom he formed De La Soul in 1988. Jolicoeur adopted the name Trugoy because it was yogurt spelled backwards, a choice indicative of a playful signature style also marked by flashing peace signs and wearing the “De La Do.” Trugoy was known for rocking African medallions on stage; early on in the trio’s run, alongside the Jungle Brothers, Da La Soul founded Native Tongues, a collective whose Afrocentric interests and often jazzy sound contrasted strongly with the rising gangster rap movement. Other prominent Native Tongues members included A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah, and Black Sheep.

De La Soul linked up with producer Prince Paul for their 1990 debut album 3 Feet High And Rising, one of the masterpieces of the peak sample collage era. The album’s colorful, flowery aesthetic (in every sense, from production to packaging) attracted De La Soul a reputation as hippies, which they pushed against with 1991’s darker and more serious De La Soul Is Dead. Their sound further evolved on 1993’s Buhloone Mindstate, completing one of the great three-album arcs in rap history.

The group split from Prince Paul and began producing themselves on 1996’s Stakes Is High. Although De La Soul began to recede from the zeitgeist as hip-hop continued to morph, they had a key role in breaking younger talent like Mos Def and Common. Three more albums followed in the early 2000s, and in 2005, they scored one of their biggest hits with the Gorillaz collaboration “Feel Good Inc.,” which featured an especially memorable verse from Trugoy and won De La Soul their first Grammy. Trugoy teamed with Posdnuous on 2012’s De La Soul’s Plug 1 & Plug 2 presents… First Serve, and the full group reconvened for 2016’s crowdfunded And The Anonymous Nobody…

De La Soul had a tough run, business-wise. The Turtles’ sued the group for their unlicensed sample of “You Showed Me” on the 3 Feet High And Rising interlude “Transmitting Live from Mars,” one of several lawsuits that led to the end of the sampling free-for-all that led to inspired albums like that one and Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique in the late ’80s and early ’90s. More recently, the group’s catalog was withheld from streaming services partially due to Warner’s refusal to get samples cleared. At the beginning of this year, they triumphantly announced that their albums would finally be streaming starting in March. It’s a victory that will be bittersweet now that Trugoy is gone.

Below, check out some of Trugoy’s music.