On August 4, 2006, Ho was diagnosed with colon cancer. After chemotherapy, his health improved, but a second tumor was found on September 24, 2007. He wrote two books about cancer: "Diary of a Radical Cancer Warrior: Fighting Cancer and Capitalism at the Cellular Level" (2011), and "Raw Extreme Manifesto: Change Your Body, Change Your Mind and Change the World While Spending Almost Nothing!" (2012). He received numerous grants, including from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation, and among the honours accorded him were a 1996 American Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, in 2009 the Harvard Arts Medal, and in March 2014 (almost 1 month before his death) the Harlem Arts Festival Lynette Velasco Community Impact Award. At the 17th Annual Black Musicians Conference, Ho received the Duke Ellington Distinguished Artist Lifetime Achievement Award, which he was the youngest person to achieve. Ho died on April 12, 2014, aged 56, at his home in Brooklyn, New York.