Rapper Hurricane G Dies at 52

Brooklyn rapper Gloria “Hurricane G” Rodriguez has died at age 52. The passing of the Puerto Rican MC best known for her 1997 No. 10 hot rap singles hit “Somebody Else” as well as binlingual songs including “Underground Lockdown” and “El Barrio,” was confirmed by EPMD’s Erick Sermon, who had a daughter with Rodriguez.

“My heart is hardened today. One of my good friends…. my oldest daughters mother passed away today #HURRICANEGLORIA was also a legend in her own right in the Hiphop community,” Sermon wrote in an Instagram tribute posted on Sunday (Nov. 6). “One of the first puertorican female rappers She rapped with me. @redmangilla she paved the way @keithmurray @diddy she was in all the Hiphop magazines with all the top females at the time.”

Rodriguez first gained fame in 1992 when she appeared on Redman’s “Tonight’s da Night,” then teamed up with him again two years later on “We Run N.Y.” from his Dare Iz a Darkside album. Her debut full-length Spanglish album, All Woman, dropped in 1997 on the New York-based H.O.L.A. Recordings after she’d logged spots on songs by everyone from Xzibit to Funkdoobiest, Keith Murray and Puff Daddy. She also became the first female member of the East Coast hip-hop crew the Def Squad, which included Sermon, Redman, Murray and Jamal.

Though her output was sparse, Sermon noted in his tribute that legendary underground hip-hop radio due Stretch and Bobbito “loved a song that she did called ‘MILKY,’” adding, “She will be missed all around the world. I can’t believe this. Pray for us. Beautiful blessings. She was a beautiful person a wonderful mother as real as they come.”

At press time no cause of death was revealed, but according a FB post on May 20 from Rodriguez’s daughter, Lexus, her mom was suffering from advanced lung cancer. “My mom has stage 4 lung cancer,” she wrote at the time. “I dont know how many of you understand what that means but even after 30 years of life Im still trying to process it myself. I have never cried so much in my life I have never felt so disconnected from reality in my life. Yet my mom still manages to be the one to hold it together and say “dont worry baby everythings gonna be alright”. S–t im crying right now but today is a blessing.”

Hurricane G’s last released album was a 2013 collaboration with Thirstin Howl III entitled Mami & Papi.

See Sermon’s tribute and listen to “Somebody Else” below.