Jello Biafra, the unmistakable voice behind Dead Kennedys, has been hospitalised after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke, according to a statement released by his label Alternative Tentacles.
The 67 year old punk icon experienced the medical emergency on Saturday, March 7th, after collapsing at home, the stroke was reportedly linked to high blood pressure (per Metal Injection).
Biafra later described the frightening moment he realised something was seriously wrong:
‘I hopped out of my bed because I needed to pee, and my left leg just collapsed under me and I fell to the floor. I couldn’t even break the fall with my left arm because it wasn’t working either. I tried to hop back up again, and I couldn’t. I realized I had “fallen and I can’t get up!”‘
He quickly understood the gravity of the situation.
‘It was this point I thought, “Oh sh*t, I’m having a stroke!” I still have a lot of great stuff in me, but right now I gotta lotta rehabbing to do.’
According to Alternative Tentacles, Biafra is currently hospitalised but stable as he begins the early stages of recovery.
‘Jello Biafra is currently hospitalized but stable. Speaking for the Alternative Tentacles family, we are all just very thankful he is okay and getting the care that he needs. We will update you all as we are able.’
Biafra remains one of punk’s most confrontational and politically outspoken figures, as the frontman of Dead Kennedys, he helped shape the sound and attitude of American hardcore punk in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Albums like Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables and Plastic Surgery Disasters pushed punk further into political territory, pairing razor sharp satire with some of the most ferocious music of the era, even decades later, those records still feel like protest songs wired straight into the present.
Outside the band, Biafra built an equally influential legacy through Alternative Tentacles, the independent label he founded in 1979, the label has long served as a platform for underground punk, industrial and experimental artists who rarely fit inside the mainstream music industry.
More updates on Biafra’s condition are expected as he begins rehabilitation.
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