New York, NY (August 4, 2025)—A mainstay of 1980s and early-90s hip-hop production, Hitman Howie Tee (Howard Thompson) died Saturday, August 2, 2025. Over the course of his career, Thompson produced, wrote with and engineered a number of top acts from the era, including Full Force, The Real Roxanne, Chubb Rock, Special Ed, Heavy D, Bell Biv Devoe, Color Me Badd, Whistle and more. He was 61.

While his cause of death has not been reported, DJ Premier, paying tribute on Instagram, alluded that Thompson had been ill for some time, noting, “It crushed me that he couldn’t speak and had to go through the motions until his passing.”

Howard Anthony Thompson was born on February 2, 1964 in London to West Indian parents, before emigrating to the U.S., where he was raised in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn. While he entered the music industry as a member of early 80s hip-hop act CDIII, which recorded a pair of singles on Prelude Records, he had moved on to production by 1985, as he teamed up with Kangol Kid of U.T.F.O to produce the group Whistle.

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Before long, Thompson became an in-house producer at Select Records, working with Chubb Rock (an old friend from his Flatbush days), Special Ed and The Real Roxanne. While he made his name with rap and hip hop, however, it was the early Nineties arrival of New Jack Swing that led to Thompson’s commercial high point, when he co-produced and co-wrote Color Me Badd’s breakout hit “I Wanna Sex You Up” and then produced the follow-up, “All 4 Love,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1991. According to DJ Premier’s post, Thompson eventually moved on to scoring commercials.

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Questlove honored the late producer on social media, noting, “Second to Mark 45 King, I feel like Howie was such an unsung MONSTER of a producer during hip hop’s early development—I know De La was a life changing moment for us, but Howie was a cat who definitely crossed the aisle when it came to unusual music: I mean for Special Ed, he put The Beatles & Ripple in the same box. I was mind blown.”