Shock G of Digital Underground & Humpty Dance Creator Dead at 57

His name was Humpty.

Shock G a.k.a. Humpty Hump, a.k.a Gregory Edward Jacobs has shocked us all with his passing yesterday night. As reported by the Chicago Tribune. The cause of death has yet to be confirmed, although Jacobs was found in a hotel room in Florida. The news was first broken by the co-founder and drummer of Digital Underground, Jimi C. Dright, Jr., on Instagram last night.

Early Life

Gregory Jacobs was born in New York City on August 25th, 1963. After moving around the east coast for most of his childhood, his family found stability in Florida. Jacobs was a talented drummer in his teens but dropped the drums for turntables. This set him on his path to the Digital Underground. He formed a group after dropping out of high school, which caught the ear of the programming director from a local radio station, who gave teenage Gregory a live-on-air DJ gig as Gregory Racker. It didn’t last long. He got fired for playing a 15-minute version of (Not Just) Knee Deep by Funkadelic in a 5-minute slot. After hitchhiking through the U.S. after a disagreement with his father, Gregory decided to take his career seriously got his diploma.

Years later, he would go on to create Digital Underground with Chopmaster J in Oakland, California. Their first album, Sex Packets, didn’t drop until 1990. The Humpty Dance was their second single of off Sex Packets, which launched both Shock G and Digital Underground into the stratosphere. The Humpty Dance was recently used in Coming 2 America and has also been used in Beavis & Butthead (TV-show), Chalrie’s Angels (2000), and My Name is Earl.

Jacobs would produce Tupac‘s breakout single, I Get Around, while Tupac was still with Digital Underground. He also produced Tupac’s 2Pacalypse Now.

The Jacobs family is still waiting on more information as to what happened but did say,