Chicago hip-hop lost a foundational figure last month: Tshoma Pugh, better known as Taco Bops, died at age 54 on Saturday, July 26. As a teenager in the 1980s, Pugh took up graffiti writing, dancing, beatboxing, DJing, and MCing. Toward the end of that decade, he achieved national exposure as hip-house surged in popularity—he toured with Fast Eddie and rapped in the Hip House Syndicate, a group put together by Farley “Jackmaster” Funk. In 1988, Pugh helped found WGCI radio’s first hip-hop program, The Rap Down . “I think that’s one of the lasting elements of his legacy, and one of the most unsung,” says longtime collaborator Ian Blake, who raps under the name Chicago Threez.

Blake and Pugh grew up on the same block in East Garfield Park, where they met as children. They found their sep

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