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Curated category

21st-century American male rappers

  • Jocko HendersonDouglas Henderson was born on the 8th of March 1918 in Baltimore. He grew up there with both parents working as teachers.
  • FabolousJohn David Jackson stood before the microphone on the 18th of November 1977. He was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Breevort Houses within Bedford-Stuyvesant.
  • Jay-ZJay-Z was born Shawn Corey Carter on the 4th of December 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in the Marcy Houses, a public housing project in the…
  • Roddy RicchRodrick Wayne Moore Jr. arrived in Compton, California on the 22nd of October 1998. He grew up within a Christian household that shaped his early years.
  • Coke La RockCoke La Rock was born on the 24th of April 1955 in The Bronx, New York City. His family roots traced back to North Carolina before he arrived in the city.
  • Dr. DreAndre Romell Young was born on the 18th of February 1965 in Compton, California, the son of Theodore and Verna Young. His middle name came from the Romells…
  • Young ThugJeffery Lamar Williams was born on the 16th of August 1991, in Atlanta, Georgia. He grew up in the Jonesboro South projects near Cleveland Avenue as the…
  • Marley MarlMarley Marl was the first producer who inspired Madlib to make beats. That single fact, drawn from an interview Madlib gave about his own origins, tells you…
  • Large ProfessorWilliam Paul Mitchell was born in Harlem on the 21st of March 1972. He grew up in Flushing, Queens, where he attended IS 237 and John Bowne High School.
  • Birdman (rapper)Birdman was born Bryan Christopher Brooks on the 15th of February 1969 at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, without a given first name.
  • Jeru the DamajaJeru the Damaja was born Kendrick Jeru Davis on the 14th of February, 1971, in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in the East New York neighborhood, where as a…
  • Lil WayneLil Wayne left school in tenth grade because his mother found a gun in his school bag. He was fifteen years old, already signed to a major label, already…
  • MC HammerStanley Kirk Burrell grew up in a three-bedroom housing project apartment in East Oakland, California, with eight siblings and a mother who worked as a…
  • Sean CombsSean Combs was born on the 4th of November 1969, in Harlem, New York City, and by the time he reached his mid-twenties he had reshaped American popular music…
  • Hi-C (rapper)Crawford Wilkerson, the rapper known as Hi-C, built his name on the streets of Compton, California, and on the recordings of some of West Coast rap's most…
  • Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar Duckworth was five years old when he watched a teenage drug dealer get killed in a drive-by shooting outside his apartment in Compton…
  • Afrika BambaataaAfrika Bambaataa was born Lance Taylor on the 17th of April, 1957, in the Bronx River Projects of New York City, to Jamaican and Barbadian immigrants.
  • 50 Cent50 Cent was shot nine times at close range outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica, Queens, on the 24th of May 2000.
  • LL Cool JLL Cool J was four years old when he walked in on his father's act of violence. James Todd Smith found his mother and grandfather shot and bleeding inside…
  • MadlibMadlib sampled his first song at 11 years old, pulling a record from his father's collection in Oxnard, California. That early act of borrowing and reshaping…
  • Lupe FiascoWasalu Muhammad Jaco arrived in Chicago on the 16th of February 1982. He grew up as one of nine children born to Shirley and Gregory Jaco.
  • Donald GloverDonald McKinley Glover Jr. was voted "Most Likely to Write for The Simpsons" in his high school yearbook at Stephenson High School in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
  • DJ Kool HercDJ Kool Herc threw a party on the 11th of August, 1973, and the music that came out of it would change the world. The address was 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the…
  • Ice-TIce-T was born Tracy Lauren Marrow on the 16th of February 1958 in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Solomon and Alice Marrow.
  • Lil JonLil Jon was born Jonathan H. Smith on the 17th of January, 1971, in Atlanta, Georgia, and he grew up to reshape American club music from the ground up.
  • MF DoomMF Doom died on the 31st of October 2020, in a Leeds hospital, from an adverse reaction to blood pressure medication. His wife, Jasmine, was not permitted to…
  • Kurtis BlowKurtis Blow stepped into a recording studio in 1979 as a twenty-year-old from Harlem, and walked out as the first rapper ever signed by a major label.
  • DMXDMX sold 251,000 copies of his debut album in its very first week. That number alone would be remarkable for any artist.
  • DJ Jazzy JeffJeffrey Allen Townes arrived in Philadelphia on the 22nd of January 1965. He grew up watching local block parties from a distance rather than dancing on the…
  • Tech N9neTech N9ne, born Aaron Dontez Yates on the 8th of November 1971 in Kansas City, Missouri, built one of the most unlikely empires in American hip-hop entirely…