Sean Price, a rapper who for two decades embodied the rugged essence of peak-era Brooklyn hip-hop, died in his sleep on Saturday morning at his home in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. He was 43.

His death was announced by his label, Duck Down Music. No cause was specified.

Mr. Price was born in Brooklyn on March 17, 1972, and never left. In the mid-1990s, under the name Ruck, he was part of the duo Heltah Skeltah, which in turn was part of the extended Brooklyn crew Boot Camp Clik. For them, Brooklyn was “Bucktown,” a place of street warfare and menacing talk.

At that time, New York rap was at its grittiest, in part a reaction to the smoothing-out that was already happening in West Coast rap. Mr. Price had an ideal voice for the sound — sneering, barrel-shaped and nimble — which he applied to rhymes that were breezily, alarmingly tough.

In 1995, Heltah Skeltah released a 12-inch single with the duo’s fellow Clik members Originoo Gunn Clappaz, calling themselves the Fab 5. The single, “Blah”/“Leflaur Leflah Eshkoshka,” is one of the essential documents of that era, with Ruck pugilistically rapping on “Blah,” “Blunts get smoked and chumps get choked/When they try to quote the notes that B-I-G Ruck wrote.”