According to reports, hip-hop artist/producer and dancer Steve Williams, better known as Stezo died at the age of 51. His producer Chris Lowe confirmed the unfortunate news on social media. Stezo got his start as a backup dancer for EPMD appearing in their video for “You Gots to Chill,” off the group's 1988 project Strictly Business. Stezo went on to later develop his own projects dropping his debut album Crazy Noise in 1989. The album peaked on at 73 on the Billboard U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart followed by Where’s the Funk At in 1997 and C.T. (The Lost State) in 2005.
Hip-Hop notables such as Questlove, Pete Rock, Stretch Armstrong, El-P, and DJ Premier all took to social media to pay their respect to Stezo. Questlove eulogized Stezo on IG, writing:
This is gonna happen a lot. Before Hammer’s pants, there was #Stezo...before we all abused that #SkullSnaps #ItsANewDay break...there was Stezo. Before #AtomicDog fed an ENTIRE GENRE....there was Stezo. While your favorite rapper was asking so & so & such & such to do some beats for em....Stezo was doing it all himself. I mean for gods sake this man made #SteveMartin cool to a hip hop generation too young to get King Tut/The Jerk/& a wild & crazy guy references—-he turned Steve Martin into the coolest verb EVER in 1988 (google #EPMD’s #YouGotsToChill video to see dances that defined a generation—-we talk about MCs/producers/videos/movies/icons from 87-92 but rarely give light to the iconic dances that came from that era—Stezo was always my fav dancer from this era (yes I know the Kid N Play dance was iconic too) but when you don’t have a partner to kick it with? Then yknow...lol——this dude is displaying ALL the moves that others will build empires on. Damn this damn virus man. Damn. Thank you
Source: google.com
