Last night, we heard of the death of Phife Dawg, a rapper who helped shaped the hip hop scene. Phife (whose real name is Malik Taylor) was 45 and he died of complications from diabetes.

When you look at the cause of precocious death of rappers, Phife‘s death was not typical. Incredibly, most hip hop artists’ deaths are from being shot and killed. In fact, almost 40% of all deaths recorded on this wiki page, were caused by gun violence. The second most common cause of death was traffic accidents followed by complications from diseases.

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<img src="https://venngage.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2e3c5b7d-91d9-4348-92ad-fde6ed41f5e7.png" alt="Infographic: How Hip Hop Artists Die | Venngage" /> How Hip How Artists Die Young | <a href="https://venngage.com/blog/why-do-hip-hop-artists-die-young">Venngage</a>

RIP Phife. Thanks for keeping it real.