Rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard found dead in studio at age 35

NEW YORK -- The rap artist O.D.B., whose unique rhymes, wild lifestyle and incessant legal troubles made him one of the most vivid characters in hip hop, collapsed and died inside a recording studio Saturday. He was 35.\nO.D.B. complained of chest pains before collapsing at the Manhattan studio, and was dead by the time paramedics arrived, said Gabe Tesoriero, a spokesman for O.D.B.'s record label, Roc-a-Fella Records.\nThe cause of death was not immediately clear, but O.D.B. recently finished a prison sentence for drug possession and escaping a rehab clinic. He would have turned 36 Monday.\nO.D.B. -- also known as Ol' Dirty Bastard, Dirt McGirt, Big Baby Jesus or his legal name of Russell Jones -- was a founding member of the seminal rap group the Wu-Tang Clan in the early 1990s. With his unorthodox delivery -- alternately slurred, hyper and nonsensical -- O.D.B. stood out even in the nine-man Clan, which featured such future stars as Method Man, RZA and Ghostface Killah.\nThe Wu-Tang blueprint was for each member to pursue solo projects, and O.D.B.'s were among the best. He released hit singles such as "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" and "Got Your Money," and appeared on remixes with artists like Mariah Carey.\n"There's nobody like him in the game," RZA told the Associated Press in an April interview.\nAs his fame increased, so did his erratic behavior, and fans came to expect the unexpected from O.D.B.\nWhen "MTV News" followed him around at the height of his popularity, he took the camera crew and several of his kids (he was said to have more than a dozen, by numerous mothers) to the welfare office -- in a limousine -- to get an allotment of food stamps.\nAnd he received them.\nOver the years, he was wounded in shootings and arrested on a veritable laundry list of charges, including menacing security officers, illegally possessing body armor, driving with a suspended license, shoplifting and threatening a former girlfriend.\nIn 2000, after escaping a court-ordered stint in a California rehabilitation center, authorities searched for him for a month. He was finally arrested in Philadelphia -- three days after performing in a New York City concert with his Wu-Tang clique.\nHe was sentenced in 2001 to two to four years in prison for drug possession, plus two concurrent years for escaping from the clinic. He was released in 2003 and immediately signed with Roc-a-Fella Records.\nHis mother, Cherry Jones, said she received the news of her son's death in a phone call, which she called "every mother's worst dream."\n"To the public he was known as Old Dirty Bastard, but to me he was known as Rusty. The kindest most generous soul on earth," she said in the statement. "Russell was more than a rapper, he was a loving father, brother, uncle, and most of all, son"