US rap pioneer Kidd Creole, who helped found the band Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, was arrested by police in New York and charged with murder, police said Thursday.

The 57-year-old musician, whose real name is Nathaniel Glover, was arrested for fatally stabbing a homeless man near a shelter late Tuesday, police said. The 55-year-old victim was found in Manhattan with multiple knife wounds to the torso, and died on the way to hospital.

Kidd Creole was a founding member of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the first rap band to be inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2007.

The groundbreaking band formed in the 1970s in the Bronx, when rap and hip hop were still in their early stages, and was considered a pioneer of the style.

In 1982, they had their biggest hit with The Message, which was listed as 51 on the Rolling Stone top 500 songs of all time.

It was the first hit single to depict life in New York's dangerous ghettos in the early 1980s.