Former Bad Boy Records rapper, Craig Mack, who rose to prominence with his 1994 hit single, ‘Flava in ya Ear’, has died.
He was 46 years old.
His death on Monday night was confirmed by legendary hip-hop DJs Funkmaster Flex and DJ Scratch and rapper Biz Markie, who all took to social media early Tuesday morning.
Mack was one of the first artistes signed to Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy Records in the early ’90s and gave the label its first successful rap single.
After the success of ‘Flava in ya Ear’, the song’s remix introduced the world to rising The Notorious BIG, whose debut, Ready To Die, ended up outselling Mack’s Project: Funk Da World by a significant amount.
Project: Funk Da World ultimately peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 and No. 6 on Billboard‘s US R&B charts and certified gold by the RIAA.
Mack did release a second album in 1997, but none of the singles charted and he was unable to repeat the moderate success of his first album.
In 2002, Mack would appear in the music video for Puffy’s single ‘I Need a Girl (Part One)’.
Mack then disappeared from the public in 2007 until a 2012 a video leaked on YouTube showing that he had joined a religious cult and would not come back to mainstream rapping.
