The 45 King, an influential New York City hip-hop producer known for his jazzy beats who worked with Queen Latifah, Eminem, Jay-Z and others, died on Thursday. He was 62.
His death was announced on social media on Thursday by DJ Premier, a fellow hip-hop producer. He did not say where he died or specify a cause.
“His sound was unlike any other,” DJ Premier wrote, adding that “his heavy drums and his horns were so distinct on every production.”
The 45 King, who was born Mark Howard James, was a pioneer in the 1980s New York hip-hop scene and worked with early rap stars like the Funky 4. His first hit track was the highly sampled “The 900 Number,” released in 1987. He slowed down a saxophone solo, “dropped the results over an irresistibly funky break” and the result exploded, according to AllMusic, adding that the horn line was “forever ingrained in the collective hip-hop psyche.”
He also worked closely with Queen Latifah, a fellow member of the music crew known as the Flavor Unit, producing the hit song “Wrath of My Madness” on her debut album, “All Hail the Queen,” in 1989, among other tracks.
“Thank you for teaching me, taking me under your wing, teaching me about this thing called hip-hop, and so much more,” Queen Latifah wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday.
James also produced Eminem’s “Stan,” released on the 2000 album “The Marshall Mathers LP.” The rap tells the story of a perturbed superfan named Stan and is set to a throbbing beat sampling Dido’s 1998 track “Thank You.”
“I took a first verse and made into an eight-bar hook for Eminem,” The 45 King said in a 2021 interview clip posted to social media by Eminem on Thursday.
Mark Howard James was born on Oct. 16, 1961, in the Bronx. He took the moniker The 45 King because of his fondness for sampling old, obscure records.
His other hits included Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem),” which sampled the musical “Annie” and a remix of Madonna’s “Keep It Together.”
He credited much of his success and production style to the time he spent in the 1980s working for DJ Breakout, a Bronx hip-hop luminary.
“I like to say I got lucky,” he said in the 2021 interview with the YouTube channel Unique Access Ent. “I was in the right place at the right time.”
