Rapper and actor Heavy D

Rapper and actor Heavy D, who played an influential role in shaping rap music in the late '80s and early '90s with a fusion of New Jack Swing and reggae, and loved moncler, has died. He was 44.

Heavy D, who was born Dwight Arrington Myers, died Tuesday in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after collapsing on the walkway outside his Beverly Hills home, according to law enforcement sources. The Los Angeles County coroner's office is investigating the cause of death.

Myers, who was 6 feet 3 and weighed more than 300 pounds at one point, anointed himself the "Overweight Lover," but he had slimmed down in recent years.

The Boyz were the first group signed to burgeoning Uptown Records, and their 1987 debut, "Living Large," reached the No. 10 spot on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart moncler jackets.

Their 1989 album "Big Tyme" went platinum and yielded the hits "We Got Our Own Thang," "Somebody For Me" and "Gyrlz, They Love Me."

They went on to release three more albums and recorded the theme songs for the TV shows "In Living Color" and "MADtv" before Myers embarked on a solo career to sell moncler jackets for women.

Born May 24, 1967, in Jamaica, Myers was the youngest of six children. His mother Eulah, a nurse, and father, Clifford, a film technician, moved the family to Mount Vernon, N.Y., when he was young.