Lord Sear, Voice of GTA III's Game Radio FM, Dies at 53

Steve Watson, known to Liberty City drivers and Shade 45 listeners alike as Lord Sear, died on March 11, 2026, at the age of 53. SiriusXM's Shade 45 confirmed the news, though no cause of death was given.

For anyone who spent time behind the wheel in Grand Theft Auto III, Game FM was the station that felt different. While most of GTA III's radio lineup leaned into parody or genre pastiche, Game FM was the real thing: East Coast underground hip-hop, co-hosted by Lord Sear and DJ Stretch Armstrong when the game launched in 2001. His voice wasn't a caricature of a DJ; it was the actual sound of New York hip-hop radio translated directly into Liberty City, and for millions of players it became inseparable from the experience of driving those streets.

He returned to the GTA universe in Grand Theft Auto IV, though in a smaller capacity, voicing background pedestrians rather than fronting a station. It was a different kind of contribution, but as GTA BOOM noted, it "spoke to the ongoing relationship between Rockstar Games and the people who gave their games their sound."

Outside the games, Lord Sear spent two decades as one of the defining voices at Shade 45, the hip-hop satellite channel Eminem launched on SiriusXM in 2004. He co-hosted The All Out Show alongside Rude Jude and later ran his own program, The Lord Sear Special, where he mixed new releases with classic records and kept the underground sensibility he had carried since his WKCR days. USA Today reported his passing and collected tributes from colleagues and artists.

No funeral arrangements or family statements have been made public at the time of this writing.