Rico Wade, a member of the pioneering Atlanta-based manufacturing trio Organized Noize and a key early Outkast collaborator, has died, in response to an Instagram submit by his shut pal Killer Mike and the Atlanta Journal-Structure. No explanation for demise was cited; he was 52.

“I don’t have the phrases to specific my deep and profound sense of loss,” Killer Mike wrote. “I’m praying to your spouse and youngsters. I’m praying for the Wade household. I’m praying for us all. I deeply admire your acceptance into the Dungeon Household, mentorship, friendship and brotherhood. Idk the place I’d be with out y’all.”

The Organized Noize songwriting-production workforce — which additionally featured Ray Murray and Sleepy Brown — was shaped within the early ‘90s and performed a pivotal function in early releases by Outkast, TLC, Goodie Mob and lots of others, and had been regularly shouted out or featured on these recordings. Together with Jermaine Dupri, their sound, which was as indebted to traditional R&B as hip-hop, outlined town’s burgeoning scene of the period, which might lay the framework for Atlanta’s dominance as a hip-hop capital within the coming many years.

The prolonged collective across the scene was often called the “Dungeon Household,” which additionally included Killer Mike and Massive Rube.

Wade’s studio within the metropolis’s East Level neighborhood, “the Dungeon,” was not solely the birthplace of lots of the period’s hits, it featured in a lot of them as effectively — “We havin’ a smokeout within the Dungeon with the mary jane,” Outkast rapped on “Ain’t No Thang,” from their galvanizing 1994 debut.

Data on survivors was not instantly obtainable, though Wade is expounded to rapper Future.