Massively influential rapper Craig Mack died of congestive heart failure in March of this year. He was only 47 years old. How well you know his name may depend a little on how into hip hop you are, but you'll definitely have heard of a couple of his proteges - Busta Rhymes and Notorious B.I.G. Both legendary rappers' big breaks came as featured artists on Craig Mack's track 'Flava In Your Ear'.
Mack had a natural talent for the genre, having been discovered by Sean "Puff Daddy" Coombs MCing in a nightclub in 1990. Coombs knew talent when he came across it, and signed Mack to a deal two weeks later. Mack released two albums on Coombs's Bad Boy Records, the first garnering more success than the second, and then seemed to vanish from the industry overnight. It later transpired that he'd turned to religion, and a video surfaced of him worshiping in a Pentecostal church in 2012.