Remembering Shock G

• Shock G, the lead singer for the pioneering hip hop group Digital Underground, has died at the age of 57. The performer’s father told TMZ that his son, whose given name was Greg Jacobs, was found dead Thursday in a hotel room in Tampa. At press time the cause of death was unknown.

As Billboard reports, Digital Underground was formed in Oakland, CA in 1987 by Shock G, Chopmaster J and Kenny-K, and the collective included a revolving door of more than three dozen members over its almost three decades of activity — including some of the earliest recordings from a young Tupac Shakur.

The group hit it big on MTV in 1990 with the video for their Top 10 smash, “The Humpty Dance,” from the album Sex Packets, featuring Shock G as his alter ego, “Humpty Hump.” The song, which includes the memorable line, “I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom,” spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Rap Songs chart in 1990 and peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, also garnering a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance By a Duo or Group.

It was Shock G’s former bandmate Chopmaster J who broke the news of his friend’s passing in an Instagram post that read, “34 years ago almost to the day we had a wild idea we can be a hip hop band and take on the world. Through it all the dream became a reality and the reality became a nightmare for some. And now he’s awaken from the fame long live Shock G Aka Humpty Hump and Rest In Peace my Brotha Greg Jacobs!!!”