Trugoy the Dove

David Jude Jolicoeur, known widely as Trugoy the Dove and one of the founding members of the Long Island hip-hop trio De La Soul, has died. He was 54.

His representative Tony Ferguson confirmed the reports Sunday. No other information was immediately available.

In recent years, Jolicoeur, had said he was battling congestive heart failure and wore a Lifevest defibrillator machine. De La Soul was part of the hiphop tribute at the Grammy Awards last week, but Trugoy was not onstage with his fellow bandmates.

Jolicoeur was born in Brooklyn but raised in the Amityville area of Long Island, where he met Vincent Mason (Pasemaster Mase) and Kelvin Mercer (Posdnuos) and the three decided to form a rap group, with each taking on distinctive names. Trugoy, Jolicoeur said, was backwards for “yogurt.” More recently he’d been going by Dave.

De La Soul’s debut studio album “3 Feet High and Rising,” produced by Prince Paul, was released in 1989 by Tommy Boy Records and praised for being a more light-hearted and positive counterpart to more charged rap offerings like N.W.A’S “Straight Outta Compton” and Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” released just one year prior.

Sampling everyone from Johnny Cash and Steely Dan to Hall & Oates, De La Soul signaled the beginning of alternative hip-hop. In Rolling Stone, critic Michael Azerrad called it the first “psychedelic hip-hop record.” Some even called them a hippie group, though the members didn’t quite like that.

Over the years, the group was nominated for six Grammy Awards, winning one for Best Pop Vocal Collaboration for the Gorillaz song “Feel Good Inc.”

During the pandemic, he said, there were talks of solo albums and branching out — which weren’t new.

“We support each other in those ideas, but at the same time, I think the magic really happens when it’s the three of us,” he said. “I’m not trying to crack that formula, and I don’t think anyone else is, either.”