Lee O’Denat, a pioneer in the world of music and the founder of popular website WorldStarHipHop, was found dead late Monday night. He was 43 years old. Best known within the industry simply as “Q,” O’Denat was both the CEO of WorldStarHipHop and its public face. According to TMZ, he passed away in his sleep. Q launched his premiere hip hop website in 2005 when he began posting his mixtapes on the Internet, eventually evolving the URL into a mixture of hip hop videos, fight footage and other outrageous clips. As you can imagine, the site really started to take off once cell phone cameras became all the rage. WorldStarHipHop quickly grew into one of the most popular websites for crazy, unedited and unexpected raw footage from its readers. But the site also remained a destination for breaking news and fresh music, welcoming up-and-coming artists to submit their tracks and be featured on the home page. The website gained such momentum over the past few years and become so synonymous with viral content that, often times when something outlandish happened in public, someone would scream out: WORLDSTAR! WorldStar has also hosted a multitude of music videos for artists such as Migos, Young Thug, Fetty Wap, Future and many more. A new series inspired by the site, “World Star TV,” is scheduled to air on MTV2 next month. “Nothing caught on camera can be denied, it’s right there in front of you = and you can’t question it,” O’Denat said in a 2014 interview about the success of his creation. “I believe that has contributed to WorldStar’s organic growth in popularity.”. Further details surrounding Q’s passing are unknown at this time. In 2015, he was asked by The New York Times why his website featured such adult-themed content, to which the founder replied: “Hip hop is for the sex, the drugs, the violence, the beefs, the culture. That’s the competitiveness of hip hop, so I felt like the site needed to be R-rated.” Expect plenty of musicians to express their shock and sympathy over social media in regard to this news as the day progresses. “My condolences go out to his family. Q was an entrepreneur, a pioneer and all around great guy,” Kevin Black, former President of WorldStarHipHop.com told AllHipHop.com. View Slideshow: 28 Musicians Who Died Too Young We also send our condolences to anyone that knew Q well. His influence will continue to be felt both online and within the music world for many years to come. UPDATE : An autopsy will be performed later today, TMZ reports. It also claims those close to the situation believe Q died of a heart attack.
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Lee O’Denat Dies; WorldStarHipHop Founder Was 43
