Rapper and producer Dot Rotten dies at the age of 37 | Rotten point

British rapper and producer Dot Rotten, who thrived in the grime scene before transitioning to mainstream success, has died at the age of 37.

The musician, whose real name was Joseph Ellis Stevenson, has reportedly died in Gambia. His family confirmed the death to the BBC.

Born and raised in South London, Ellis Stevenson began producing music as a child and was still a teenager when he released his debut mixtape This Is the Beginning in 2007. He became famous as one of the primary beatmakers in the then-burgeoning grime scene, with tracks such as Petrol Bomb and Bazooka providing heavy but energetic backing to the MCs. He has released seven volumes of the Rotten Riddims series, as well as a number of other mixtapes.

An accomplished MC himself, Rotten was unafraid of the combative paths that clashed with peers like Wiley, P Money JME and Stormzy over the years. He transitioned to a wider audience after signing to Mercury Records in 2011, appearing on Ed Sheeran’s collaboration project No. 5 EP that year as well as an all-star charity record, Teardrop, released to benefit Children in Need. He was nominated for a BBC Sound… poll in 2012, and later that year released his only Top 20 single, “Overload”, which leaned towards a dubstep sound and sampled Robert Miles’s trance-like “Kids”.

His first album for Mercury was not a commercial success and Ellis-Stevenson left the label, changed his artist name to Zeph Ellis and refocused on production. Kano used one of his tracks, XCXD BXMB, on his hit song Garage Skank, and also co-produced I See You Shining, a Top 40 hit for Nines.

Lady Leshurr was among the British rap names to pay tribute, writing: “My jaw just dropped… Rest in peace Dot Rotten, we’ve lost another goat [greatest of all time]”.