CO-FOUNDER OF DE LA SOUL HELPED CHANGE HIP-HOP

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, living with a LifeVest machine affixed to his person. De La Soul was part of the hip-hop tribute at the Grammy Awards last week, but Trugoy was not onstage.

Tributes from fellow rappers and others poured in on social media shortly after the news broke Sunday.

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 lighthearted 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.”

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.” In 2010, “3 Feet High and Rising” was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for its historic significance.

“It’s a hip-hop masterpiece for the era in which it was released,” Jolicoeur told Billboard earlier this year. “I think the element of that time of what was taking place in music, hip-hop, and our culture, I think it welcomed that and opened up minds and spirits to see and try new different things.”

They followed with “De La Soul Is Dead,” in 1991, and “Stakes Is High,” in 1996.

De La Soul released eight albums and in March were going to make their streaming service debut, on Spotify, Apple Music and others after a long battle with Tommy Boy Records about legal and publishing matters.

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.”