Fans and many members of the Hip-Hop community are paying tribute to popular mixtape DJ White Owl, who passed away this week.
Depending on your age and level of mixtape fandom, DJ White Owl helped turned your high school hangout into a full blown party with his “Drop That”, “R&B”, “Best Of’s” and “Whiteowl Down South” mixtapes. He was also known to break music from Lil Wayne, The Diplomats and the D-Block family. News of his passing surfaced on Monday (June 6) when close friend Pokerface posted a memorial to White Owl on his Instagram page.
The cause of his death is currently unknown, however, HotNewHipHop claimed it may have been connected to a long-term illness the New York native was facing.
His career as a DJ reportedly began in the 80’s, but it wasn’t until the 2000’s White Owl received praise for releasing Lil Wayne tracks that helped solidify the rapper’s “mixtape Weezy” persona. White Owl also occasionally rapped with the group, A-Double.
Plenty of rappers and DJs such as Joe Budden and DJ Green Lantern took to Twitter to honor White Owl.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGV9-dpNpVL/
Smh…. Rest in Peace DJ White Owl.
— Joe Budden (@JoeBudden) June 6, 2016
RIP DJ WHITE OWL
— little farma (@stylesp) June 7, 2016
https://twitter.com/DJGREENLANTERN/status/739882690090913792
https://twitter.com/HarryFraud/status/740243697674125312
Rest in Peace DJ White Owl. He had his own lane of hustle. https://t.co/MNlNLFvJhQ
— Statik Selektah (@StatikSelekt) June 7, 2016
Rest In Peace Dj Whiteowl
— BIG MIKE THE RULER (@bigmikeruler) June 6, 2016
https://twitter.com/BizzyCrook/status/740016930812104704
You can check out just some of his work on LiveMixtapes and his Soundcloud pages, respectively.