World renowned drummer Keith LeBlanc has died at 69 years of age. LeBlanc was the drummer for the Sugar Hill Records house band and rhythm section which included bass player Doug Wimbish and guitarist Skip McDonald. LeBlanc was the drummer on classic early rap recordings such as the Sugar Hill Gang's "8th Wonder", "Sugar Hill Groove", and "Apache" as well as Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5's "Freedom", "Birthday Party", and "It's Nasty". He also played on recordings by the Funky 4 + 1, The Sequence, the Crash Crew, Spoonie G, and Busy Bee.

After leaving Sugar Hill Records in 1982, LeBlanc recorded with Tommy Boy Records where he produced and played on Love Letters, the debut album by Staten Island's Force MD's, as well as "Unity" with James Brown and Afrika Bambaataa, and "Lip Service" as Beatmaster.

One of his biggest Tommy Boy hits was "No Sell Out", a song credited as the first to include Malcolm X speeches over drum machine beats. Keith LeBlanc was one of the first drummers to embrace drum machines, and he mastered the Oberheim DMX and Linn Drum. He told The Foundation that his inspiration for "No Sell Out" came primarily from Grandmaster Flash's "Adventures On The Wheels of Steel", which was released on Sugar Hill Records. "Flash had cut in some spoken word from a cassette, and I thought that was really striking," he explained. "I knew nothing about Malcolm X, so I called [fellow drummer] Harold Sargent, and he told me to read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, then he loaded me up with every Malcolm X record he had."

LeBlanc also contributed to the Artists United Against Apartheid song "Sun City", released in 1985. He later moved to London working with British mixer/producer Adrian Sherwood of On-U Sound, together creating the sound of funk noise giants Tackhead. Keith's landmark album Major Malfunction was of great influence to a whole generation of musicians. The album, a reaction to the 1986 disaster with space shuttle Challenger, started off a whole new genre of industrial music.

Apart from his work as a member of the legendary On-U Sound posse, LeBlanc released twenty five sampling cd's with loads of drum samples and sound effects, and also many solo projects from his label Blanc Records. Keith's writing production and drumming skills have attracted the likes of Living Color, Peter Gabriel, The Cure, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, James Brown, Trevor Horn, Seal, R.E.M., The Rolling Stones, Annie Lennox, Jalal (Last Poets), The Stone Roses, Robert Palmer, ABC, Little Steven, Will Downing, Tina Turner, Depeche Mode, and many more.

His last project was released in August of 2023, and is titled The Chess Project - New Moves. The album features reimagined hits from the Chess Records catalog, and features Rolling Stones collaborator Bernard Fowler, Skip McDonald, Eric Gales, MonoNeon,Mohini Dey, Paul Nowinski, and Reggie Griffin.