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In Memoriam

In Memoriam : UTFO rapper Kangol Kid

Kangol Kid, a member of the Brooklyn hip-hop group UTFO whose 1984 song “Roxanne, Roxanne” sparked a legendary rap rivalry, has died.

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Kangol Kid
Kangol Kid (Image source: Instagram- @yokango | https://www.instagram.com/p/CTFzerSLmtk/?igsh=MWhqZmEwb3MyOXE2dg==l)

Kangol Kid, a member of the Brooklyn hip-hop group UTFO whose 1984 song “Roxanne, Roxanne” sparked a legendary rap rivalry, has died. HipHopDX confirmed the news.

Kangol Kid’s cancer diagnosis

Born Shaun Fequiere, Kangol Kid’s death comes after he revealed he was battling stage 4 colon cancer; he was first diagnosed in February 2021.

In late November, the rapper shared a photo of his fellow rapper LL Cool J visiting him at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, where he recently underwent surgery.

“Please forgive me for not returning calls and more,” Kangol Kid wrote at the time. “Things have become, and are becoming a little more difficult than imagined. I’ve been admitted again for complications related to my condition. Thank you to those who have been instrumental in my latest ordeal. Your actions have been well received and greatly appreciated. I am blessed to have you by my side through this. I love you all.”

LL Cool J’s Rock the Bells fest tweeted, “Hip-Hop lost a legend today with the transitioning of [Kangol Kid] but his legacy will forever serve as a source of inspiration, courage, and love. Rock The Bells sends our deepest condolences to all of his family and loved ones.”

 

UTFO

The hip-hop group UTFO is best known for their 1984 single “Roxanne, Roxanne,” with the Kangol Kid delivering the first verse in what soon after launched “The Roxanne Wars,” a series of answer songs headlined by Marley Marl’s then-14-year-old protégé Roxanne Shante.

See also  Nathan "Seven" Scott, LGBT advocate, passes away

Kangol Kid’s courageous battle

In a March interview with Pix11 News, Kangol said he was feeling better after his initial surgery, which required 10 centimeters of his colon to be removed.

“I didn’t believe it,” he said of his diagnosis. “That’s the last thing you want to hear. … when those words were said to me, I fell out inside. I stood up after awhile, spoke to my friends who kept my spirits up through all of this and my mentality just changed, like, ‘You gotta fight this.’”

Kangol Kid was just 55 years old at the time of his death.


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Unheard Voices Magazine is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

Unheard Voices is an award-winning news magazine that started in 2004 as a local Black newsletter in the Asbury Park, Neptune, and Long Branch, NJ areas to now broaden into a recognized Black online media outlet. They are the recipient of the NAACP Unsung Hero Award and CV Magazine's Innovator Award for Best Social Justice Communications Company.

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In Memoriam

In Memoriam: Actor Bill Cobbs dies at 90

Bill Cobbs, an actor with over 50 years of experience in Hollywood, has died. He was 90.

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Bill Cobbs
Bill Cobbs (Photo by Dennis Tudor (ATL_Buzz), CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Bill Cobbs, an actor with over 50 years of experience in Hollywood, has died. He was 90.

Passing details for Boll Cobbs

Cobbs passed away Tuesday night at his home in Riverside, CA, his publicist, Chuck I. Jones, confirmed to TMZ. The cause of death was not revealed.

Acting career

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Cobbs served in the Air Force for 8 years and worked at IBM and as a car salesman before relocating to New York to start a career as an actor.

With a career spanning to the 1970s, Cobbs has appeared in nearly 200 movies and TV shows.

Some notable roles Cobbs played were Devaney in “The Bodyguard,” Louisiana Slim in 1979’s “The Hitter,” Walter in 1984’s “The Brother from Another Planet,” and had an iconic role in “New Jack City”.

Bill Cobbs received several accolades including a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Performance in a Daytime Program for his work on the kids show “Dino Dana.”


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See also  Sean Lampkin, actor known as Nipsey from 'Martin', dies at 54
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In Memoriam

In Memoriam: Willie Mays, MLB Hall of Famer, dies at 93

Willie Mays, whose unparalleled array of skills made him professional baseball’s greatest center fielder of all time, has died. He was 93.

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Willie Mays
Photo: Manny's Baseball Land via tradingcarddbdotcom, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Willie Mays, whose unparalleled array of skills made him professional baseball’s greatest center fielder of all time, has died. He was 93.

Passing details of Willie Mays

“My father has passed away peacefully and among loved ones,” said Michael Mays in a statement released by the Giants. “I want to thank you all from the bottom of my broken heart for the unwavering love you have shown him over the years. You have been his life’s blood.”

MLB Career

NBC News reports:

Nicknamed the “Say Hey Kid” for his boundless enthusiasm and penchant for greeting everyone, “Say hey,” Mays played for 22 big-league seasons, breaking in with the New York Giants in 1951 and then becoming a fixture in San Francisco when the franchise moved west. He ended his career back in New York with the Mets in 1973.

Mays was the sport’s consummate “five-tool” talent — he could hit for a high batting average, blast home runs, gallop around the bases, catch the ball and throw it with authority.

He recorded a .301 career batting average, slugged 660 home runs (sixth most all-time), banged out 3,293 hits (12th most), amassed 1,909 runs batted in (11th most) and scored 2,068 runs (seventh most).

Mays is credited with making the greatest defensive play in baseball history — an over-the-shoulder snag in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, capturing a drive off the bat of Cleveland Indians slugger Vic Wertz.

Mays sprinted into deep center and had his back to home plate, 425 feet away, when he made “the catch” on Sept. 29, 1954, at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan.

Hall of Fame sportscaster Jack Brickhouse called the play: “Willie Mays just brought this crowd to its feet with a catch which must have been an optical illusion to a lot of people.”

The MVP award for the best player of the World Series was named after Mays in 2017.

Major League Baseball on Tuesday called Mays “one of the most exciting all-around players in the history of our sport.”


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See also  Sean Lampkin, actor known as Nipsey from 'Martin', dies at 54

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Black Excellence

In Memoriam: Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. (1928 – 2024)

James M. Lawson Jr., a Methodist minister who became the teacher of the civil rights movement, has died.

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James Lawson Jr
Photo Credit: Joon Powell, CC BY 2.5 , via Wikimedia Commons | (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jameslawson.jpg)

James M. Lawson Jr., a Methodist minister who became the teacher of the civil rights movement, has died.

He was 95.

Rev James M. Lawson Jr passes

Lawson died Sunday of cardiac arrest en route to a Los Angeles hospital, according to his son J. Morris Lawson III.

Civil rights activist

Lawson was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1928, according to his biography by The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

For decades, Lawson worked as a pastor, labor movement organizer and university professor.

Recruited by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Lawson trained hundreds of youthful protesters in nonviolent tactics that made the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins a model for fighting racial inequality in the 1960s.

Dubbed ad “the leading nonviolence theorist” by King, Lawson had studied Gandhi’s philosophy in India before joining the movement in the South. He led seminars throughout the region and became a gallivanting spokesperson for the Southern Christian Leadership.  Conference.

In 1968, he invited King to speak to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, where the captivating preacher was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel.

Lawson committed his life to civil rights, working with various groups in the South until 1974, when he moved to L.A. to become pastor of Holman United Methodist Church. He led the church for 25 years. He retired in 1999 but remained an activist for peace and social justice.

See also  Nathan "Seven" Scott, LGBT advocate, passes away

He also taught at the University of California Los Angeles’ college of social sciences, and university officials there called him “one of the most impactful social justice leaders of the twentieth-century.”


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Unheard Voices Magazine is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

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