This year is just much too much.

Another legend gone. R.I.P., Roc Raida.

Here’s part of Roc Raida’s bio, excerpted from his myspace page:

Roc Raida began his DJ career in the early eighties at the age of ten. Surrounded by such inspirations as his father, a member of the Sugar Hill Records act Mean Machine and hip hop impresario Grandmaster Flash, Raida cultivated his interest into an absolute passion. Now, Roc Raida is considered among the best of the contemporary DJ’s and has brought the art of Turntablism and Party rocking to a fresh new level.

In the late eighties Raida gained prominence as a member of the New York-based crew the X-Men who, for obvious of copyright reasons, later became known as the X-Ecutioners. Champions of furthering the turntablist movement, the X-Ecutioners made their reputation by utilizing the techniques of beat-juggling; the manual alteration between individual kick and snare sounds to create original drum patterns in real time. This practice has been an inspiration and a force in Roc Raida’s style.

In the beginning defeat was commonplace, as battles were mainly popularity contests. The more contests he entered the more the competition began to appreciate his style and determination. Pushing his limits and raising the standard with which DMC’s are judged, Raida began to get noticed. His impressive finishes in some of the premier DJ battles; first place in the 1991 “As One”; second place in the “Superman Battle”; and second place in the 1992 DMC US Finals were just the beginning. In 1995 Raida, was crowned the DMC World Champion in front of a massive London audience.