People Under The Stairs’ Double K Dead At 43

Rob Loud/Getty Images

People Under The Stairs’ Double K Dead At 43

Rob Loud/Getty Images

Michael “Double K” Turner, one half of the long-running Los Angeles rap duo People Under The Stairs, has died. Rolling Stone reports that Double K died at home on Saturday, and no cause of death has been reported. Double K was 43.

Double K and Christopher “Thes One” Portugal formed People Under The Stairs in the mid-’90s, when both were in high school. The duo used Thes One’s student-loan money to release their first 12″ single, 1998’s “The Next Step II,” and they followed it later that year with their debut album The Next Step. The duo produced everything themselves. The single and album were both self-released, but they got the attention of the San Francisco indie Om Records, which signed the group.

Over the next 21 years, People Under The Stairs released another 10 studio albums, all on indie labels. The duo’s sound was laid-back and jazz-influenced, and it drew on the dazed lineage of Los Angeles underground rap. The duo also toured constantly, playing clubs and festivals. They never made a mainstream chart impact, but they were an inspiration to artists like Mac Miller, who sampled People Under The Stairs on the 2011 track “People Under The Stairs” and who toured with the duo that same year. People Under The Stairs broke up a couple of years ago, announcing that their 2019 album Sincerely, The P would be their last. Below, check out a few examples of their work.

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