John Singleton has passed away

John Singleton has died at the age of 51.

The Oscar-nominated writer and director, best known for 1991’s Boyz n The Hood, had suffered a stroke last week.

He had been in a coma since then, but his family elected to take him off life support.

“We want to thank the amazing doctors at Cedars-Sinai Hospital for their expert care and kindness and we again want thank all of John’s fans, friends and colleagues for all of the love and support they showed him during this difficult time,” the family said in a statement.

He was the the first African American and, at the age of 24, the youngest person to have ever been nominated for the Best Director Oscar. Lee Daniels, Barry Jenkins, Jordan Peele and Spike Lee, have been nominated since.

Boys n The Hood has since attained classic status and, in 2002, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film “culturally significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

His other films included Poetic Justice (1993), Higher Learning (1995), Rosewood (1997), Shaft (2000), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), and Four Brothers (2005). He recently co-created the crime drama Snowfall.

He will be missed.