DRAMA

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Christopher Charles Thurston died the same way he lived.

For hip-hop.

"I grew up in Queens, been saggin' my jeans/

People always wanna know just what Binkis means/

Before Ignorant Niggas Killed Intelligent Songs/

But hold on, it won't be that for long ... "

Slightly past midnight on Tuesday morning, Nov. 4, Thurston, the 32-year-old MC known as "Jax" of Atlanta's legendary underground...

Before DJ Drama's Gangsta Grillz mixtape series made him a hip-hop celeb, he entered the game via the underground as Binkis Recs' first DJ. Drama met Jax while attending Clark Atlanta University in the mid-1990s.

The first time I met Jax, it was like my freshman year of college at Clark, in, I think it was 1996. Jax had already been down here for a year and I was on campus. I had some ski...

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Editor's note: ''Christopher "Jax" Thurston collapsed onstage and died of natural causes due to hypertension, according to the Fulton County Medical Examiners Office. He was 32.

Jax of Atlanta's legendary indie hip-hop crew Binkis Recs suffered a heart attack collapsed while onstage at Lenny's last night and was pronounced dead after being rushed to the hospital....

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It's hard to believe the Aphilliates' offices are still located at 147 Walker St. — the same place where Atlanta police arrested Tyree "DJ Drama" Simmons and Don Cannon last January on bootlegging charges.

"A lot of people were like, 'You're going to stay there? Don't you feel like it's negative energy?'" says DJ Drama, who takes a moment to talk before going on the air...

DJ Drama's Gangsta Grillz: The Album (released on Atlantic) may help legitimize the mixtape king in the industry's eyes, but it means nothing if the streets ain't buying it.

After debuting at No. 26 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, Drama's CD dropped all the way to No. 91 in week two. In a recent New York Times article, he blames the drop in over-the-counter CD sales on the industry's mixtape...