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Tshoma Pugh, aka Taco Bops (in glasses), pictured in the late 80s and early 90s with Masta Ace (top), KRS-One (lower left), and MC Lyte. Credit: Raymond Boyd<\/p>\nTshoma Pugh, aka Taco Bops (in glasses), pictured in the late 80s and early 90s with Masta Ace (top), KRS-One (lower left), and MC Lyte. Credit: Raymond Boyd<\/p>\n
Chicago hip-hop lost a foundational figure<\/strong> 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\u2014he toured with Fast Eddie and rapped in the Hip House Syndicate, a group put together by Farley \u201cJackmaster\u201d Funk. In 1988, Pugh helped found WGCI radio\u2019s first hip-hop program, The Rap Down. \u201cI think that\u2019s one of the lasting elements of his legacy, and one of the most unsung,\u201d says longtime collaborator Ian Blake, who raps under the name Chicago Threez.<\/p>\n Blake and Pugh grew up on the same block in East Garfield Park, where they met as children. They found their separate ways into hip-hop in the late 70s and early 80s. Blake got into it via the first big hip-hop hits and through breaking\u2014a bowling alley on Madison called Cascade hosted breaker battles on Saturday nights. Around 1983, Blake reconnected with Pugh. \u201cHe\u2019s beatboxing now,\u201d Blake says. \u201cHe\u2019s not rhyming, but he knows cats that can rhyme. We come together like that. Now we walkin\u2019 around, battling everyone in the neighborhood.\u201d Blake named himself M.C. SnakeRoc, and Pugh became Taco-T. They called their group Cold Chillin\u2019 Crew. (New York label Cold Chillin\u2019 didn\u2019t exist yet.)<\/p>\n The group evolved over the years (or became several different groups with various members, depending on how you look at it), but Pugh and Blake remained at the core of whatever was happening. Pugh picked up DJing at age 14, in 1985, and started going by Taco Bopskee, right around the time his crew changed their name to FIO. \u201cFIO was \u2018Figure It Out,\u2019\u201d Blake says. \u201cWe became a hip-hop crew and a graffiti crew.\u201d Their tags drew in other graffiti writers such as Todd \u201cToddsonic\u201d McCurry, who met Pugh and Blake walking down Walnut Street.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Lake Street, all you used to see was \u2018Taco Bops\u2019 spray-painted on the walls, and \u2018SnakeRoc,\u2019\u201d McCurry says. \u201cThese guys had tags and piece books. I recognized them and called them out on their names.\u201d McCurry would eventually join Unlimited Potential Posse, an umbrella crew that included FIO. \u201cWe were B-boys,\u201d McCurry says. \u201cWe did graffiti, we hung out, but we had a little bit more than that\u2014we really were friends.\u201d<\/p>\n As Pugh got deeper into DJing, he joined a record pool, which greatly expanded his hip-hop knowledge. Howard Bailey, then a doorman at Medusa\u2019s in Lakeview<\/a>, describes Pugh as \u201ca hip-hop soldier.\u201d \u201cI was getting heavy into house music because of working at Medusa\u2019s. He always kept me abreast of hip-hop,\u201d Bailey says. \u201cHe\u2019d come to my house, like, \u2018Check out this new Ed O.G.\u2019 He always fed me music.\u201d<\/p>\n Pugh\u2019s drive to evangelize for the latest and greatest hip-hop extended to everybody in Chicago. He made a habit of calling Doug Banks\u2019s WGCI show, encouraging the station to play rap. Eventually Banks\u2019s producer, Ramon \u201cRamonski Luv\u201d Wade, took a shine to Pugh. Wade hooked up Pugh with his WGCI gig, which began in 1988 under Wade\u2019s tutelage. Because Wade often went by \u201cRamonski\u201d (which rhymed with \u201cTaco Bopskee\u201d), Pugh shortened his stage name to Taco Bops. He also came up with a backronym: \u201cThe Admired Cool One, Beyond Ordinary Poetic Skills.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pugh pitched WGCI on an all\u2013hip-hop show, and at the time, no commercial station in the city had one. When WGCI launched The Rap Down in 1988, Wade helped host\u2014and he leaned heavily on Pugh to shape the programming. Pugh brought in his own records for the show to play on the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n WGCI also gave Pugh extraordinary access to new music. His close friend Derrick Sales, aka Dee Jay Sound, remembers giving Pugh a ride to prom in 1989. \u201cHe came up with the new Public Enemy joint, put it on tape, and we was listening to it all the way from downtown,\u201d Sales says. \u201cWe just kept blasting it\u2014that song hadn\u2019t even came out on the radio yet, yet here we are listening to it. He had a lot of connections.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/taco_boogie-down-productions_feb-1989_web.jpg\")
Taco Bops (center, in glasses) with the Boogie Down Productions crew in February 1989 Credit: Raymond Boyd<\/p>\n![\"YouTube](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754498052_81_hqdefault.jpg\")
\nThe Taco Bops track \u201cMe, Myself\u201d from the 1989 comp Real Hip House, presented by Farley \u201cJackmaster\u201d Funk<\/p>\n
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