New York, NY (Top40 Charts) News broke this morning (4th March) that the legendary singer and performer with iconic rave trio The Prodigy had been found dead at his home in Essex. His death is not being treated as suspicious.
An Essex Police spokesman said: "We were called to concerns for the welfare of a man at just after 8.10am on Monday. We attended and, sadly, a 49-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. His next of kin have been informed. The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner."
Flint sang vocals on both of the Prodigy's UK number one singles, 1996's "Firestarter" and "Breathe."
With his punk aesthetic of piercings, spiked hair and intense stare, Flint became one of the UK's most iconic musical figures in the 1990s. He joined the Prodigy - originally formed by Liam Howlett in 1990 - as a dancer, later becoming a frontman alongside rapper Maxim. Aside from their 1992 debut, all of the group's seven albums have reached No 1 in the UK, the most recent being No Tourists, released in November 2018.
The group are often credited with helping to break dance music into the mainstream in the US. Firestarter's black and white video, featuring a headbanging, gurning Flint, was banned by the BBC after it was screened on Top of the Pops, with parents complaining that it frightened children. The self-lacerating lyrics - "I'm the bitch you hated / filth infatuated" - were the first Flint had written for the band. "The lyrics were about being onstage: this is what I am. Some of it is a bit deeper than it seems," Flint told Q magazine in 2008.