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Disc jockeys at 107.5 WBLS in Midtown Manhattan mourned their late colleague John "Mr. Magic" Rivas on Friday. The 53-year-old DJ who died suddenly of an apparent heart attack had helped to put rap on the world stage by first bringing it to New York radio air waves.

"I was just heartbroken to find out," said Bob Lee of WBLS. "I got a call early this morning and they said, 'Did you hear about Mr. Magic?' I said, 'What?' They said, 'He passed away.' I was just broke up, because he meant so much to a lot of people."

Mr. Magic and his radio partner, DJ Marley Marl, first started working for WBLS in 1983.

"Magic was definitely the go-to person to put rap on radio for the first time and making everybody in New York City love rap," said marl.

Mr. Magic was from Brooklyn but spent time living in the Bronx. He was playing rap records on community radio stations in the late 1970s and early 1980s and had a big following. So the commercial station WBLS agreed to put him on the air.

Kool DJ Red Alert, has worked for rival station KISS FM since those days, and even though he was going head to head against Mr. Magic, he considered his competitor to be a friend.

"We were always about the rap shows. Him on BLS, me on KISS," said Kool DJ Red Alert. "His partner Marley Marl had Shanti and I had an female artist, Sparkie D, and they used to battle each other. But when we was on the road, we was together."

Over the years, plenty of rappers said Mr. Magic was the reason they got in the game.

The late rapper Notorious B.I.G. mentioned Mr. Magic in his song "Juicy," singing, "Hanging pictures on my wall / every Saturday, rap attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl."

WBLS officials said they were in talks to put Mr. Magic back on the air at the time of his death.