Cuba Gooding Sr., the singer who had popular hits in the 1970s with the group the Main Ingredient, was found dead in a car in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon, officials said.

“In any type of writing program, they say to write about what you know,” John Singleton told Walter Mosley during a conversation following a 25th-anniversary screening of his classic film debut, Boyz n the Hood, in New York in June.