RIP: Kangol Kid Of UTFO Loses Battle With Cancer

Hip-Hop legend Kangol Kid has died from complications of colon cancer.

The rapper, who shot to fame as a member of UTFO with the hit song “Roxanne Roxanne,” was diagnosed with colorectal cancer.

In February, Kangol Kid revealed the news during an interview with AllHipHop’s show “The Library with Tim.”

“You know us men, you know we need to get ourselves checked. I hope some of you heed this as a wake-up call. Let’s not be too cool go to the doctor and see what’s going on,” Kangol told AllHipHop’s viewers. “There are many reasons why men find themselves not doing this. Mine was insurance. So finally, I got my act together. There are so many programs out there that will give you the insurance that’s needed. Once I got that, I got myself checked, and something was detected.”

Despite surgery and numerous rounds of chemotherapy, Kangol’s cancer progressed to stage 4 in recent weeks.

Rap legends like LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, Kid Capri, Kid-n-Play, Grandmaster Caz, and members of Bow Legged Lou, B-Fine, and Paul Anthony (Full Force) visited Kangol during his valiant fight against cancer.

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Kangol, born Shiller Shaun Fequiere, was a founding number of UTFO along with Doctor Ice (Fred Reeves), Educated Rapper (Jeffrey Campbell), and Mix Master Ice (Maurice Bailey).

Kangol started his career as a dancer with Doc Ice in a group known as The Keystone Dancers.

The pair caught their big break as dancers for rap group Whodini and eventually signed their first record deal with Select Records. 

UTFO’s very first single, “Hangin’ Out,” b/w “Roxanne Roxanne,” submitted the group’s place in Hip-Hop history. 

The song, which Full Force produced, was a B-side until Kool DJ Red Alert flipped the record over and turned it into a massive hit. 

“Our plan was to ignore that song and promote the hit that we know to be which is ‘Hangin Out,’ and so when our managers took it to Red Alert, Chuck Chillout, and Mr. Magic, those three DJs and more said ‘nah the song ‘Roxanne’ right here? That’s the hit.’ They shut down anything we thought, and we just had to remain silent and let them do what they do, and clearly because they do what they do so well, they were correct. ‘Roxanne Roxanne’ was that hit that to us was a fluke,” Kangol told AllHipHop.com. 

The legendary song “Roxanne, Roxanne” spawned a record-setting 25 answer records and sparked what is known in Hip-Hop culture as the “Roxanne Wars.”

Even gangster rap group N.W.A. had an unreleased version of the song, called “Rock Man, Rock Man.”

The group did not stop with “Roxanne, Roxanne.” UTFO released classics like “Beats and Rhymes,” “Bite It,” “Leader of the Pack,” “Split Personality,” “Lisa Lips,” and even an R&B smash single, “Fairytale Lover,” which was written by Kangol Kid when he was 16-years-old.

Kangol Kid also formed the group Whistle, which hit big again with the song “Buggin.”

More recently, Kangol Kid was working on a reality dating show. 

RIP.