Curated category
Grammy Award winners for rap music
- EminemEminem walked onto the stage at the 43rd Grammy Awards in 2001 alongside Elton John, a gay icon performing with a rapper whose lyrics had drawn protests from…
- Black Eyed PeasBlack Eyed Peas were assembled on the dance floors of Los Angeles in 1988, when two high school students named William James Adams Jr and Allan Pineda Lindo…
- Kanye WestKanye Omari West was born on the 8th of June 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, and by the time he was done reshaping American music, he had become one of the most…
- 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.
- Drake (musician)Aubrey Drake Graham sold more than 170 million music units worldwide before the age of 40. He holds more Billboard Hot 100 records than any other solo male…
- 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…
- 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…
- OutkastOutkast stood onstage at the 1995 Source Awards and got booed. André Benjamin walked up to accept the award for Best New Rap Group, and the crowd in New York…
- Queen LatifahQueen Latifah chose her name at age eight, pulling it from a book of Arabic names. The word latifah means "delicate" and "very kind", but Dana Elaine Owens…
- Will SmithWill Smith was born on the 25th of September 1968 in Philadelphia, and before he turned thirty, he had already won Grammy Awards as a rapper, anchored a hit…
- 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…
- Missy ElliottMissy Elliott was born Melissa Arnette Elliott on the 1st of July, 1971, at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Portsmouth, Virginia.
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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.
- 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…