David Mills, known within the AfroSphere as Undercover Black Man, died yesterday of an apparent brain aneurysm at the age of 48. He collapsed on the set of the upcoming HBO drama series Treme, about post Katrina New Orleans, set to air starting April 11th. He was a writer and executive producer on the show. He had previously written for such televison dramas as The Wire, NYPD Blue, Homocide, ER and The Corner (for which he won 2 primetime Emmys), and was the creator and executive producer for a shortlived NBC drama called Kingpin.
I had occasionally read his articles on his blog, but I had no knowledge that he was such an accomplished and successful writer. I had no idea who he was beyond his moniker. I found his posts entertaining due to his blend of a unique perspective on issues with a “warped” sense of humour. If you have never read his stuff before, take some time and visit his blog. Here is an article on his life from theRoot. He will certainly be missed.
May God bring comfort to his family during their time of grief.
afrospear.wordpress.com 
Damn Asa, this is shocking to me. I used to meet up with him over at the Denmark Vesey blog and often read he and DV’s verbal sparring matches. We never know who we are contending with, verbally sparring with, communing with and generally attempting to uplift our minds with, out here in the blogsphere.
Peace to his fam and to the Afrosphere/Afrospear.
You hate to see young, talented people die so suddenly. But as a gifted writer his work will live on. RIP.
My God, I’m sorry that I missed reading his blog when he was alive! I could have had a lot of fun commenting and talking with him–I see that he always responded and I love that.
I followed the above links and landed on his piece on the KKK–it was brilliant, and funny!!
Well I can console myself with reading over his blog now. I already found something quite interesting–a music piece on a guy who was called Canada’s Little Richard. The guys music was pretty good!
UBM will be missed by me, and I never even met him in the blogosphere. Brilliance existinguished.
“I could have had a lot of fun commenting and talking with him–I see that he always responded and I love that.”
Yes, Anna Renee. I guess that’s one of the things that made followers of UBMs blog feel as if we knew him: he always commented and spoke directly to us.
One of the surprising things I’ve learned posthumously is that he was an introvert. They say game recognizes game, but as often as I visited, I don’t know how I didn’t pick up on this. Oddly enough, I adore him even more now because of this personality trait.
Anyway, I miss him a lot.