Curated playlist
People from Harlem
- Spoonie GeeAfter his mother died, twelve-year-old Spoonie Gee moved in with his uncle, a Harlem record producer.
- Large ProfessorLarge Professor turned down an executive producer credit on Nas's Illmatic. He still produced three of its ten songs.
- Colin PowellOn the 5th of February 2003, Colin Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council. He told the council: "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more." The…
- Sean CombsSean Combs founded Bad Boy Records, which launched the Notorious B.I.G. He was later sentenced to four years in prison.
- Sammy Davis Jr.Sammy Davis Jr. once answered a simple golf question with a line that became his signature. Playing a round with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. Davis replied, "Handicap?" and then went on: "Talk about handicap. I'm a…
- Ralph EllisonA 1967 fire destroyed more than 300 pages of Ralph Ellison's second novel. He never finished it.
- Tom MorelloTom Morello, the American guitarist behind Rage Against the Machine, once made an entire festival crowd listen to nothing but noise. At Lollapalooza in 1993, his band walked onstage naked. Their mouths were covered with duct tape, and…
- Frank LucasFrank Lucas liked to ask one question when he explained how he moved heroin. "Who the hell is gonna look in a dead soldier's coffin?" He put it that way in an interview for a New York magazine article published in 2000. Lucas operated in…
- Kurtis BlowIn 1979, Harlem's Kurtis Blow became the first rapper signed by a major label.
- ASAP RockyASAP Rocky became a radio name in August 2011, when his single "Peso" leaked online. Within weeks, Hot 97, a high-profile New York station, was playing it. The song helped push cloud rap, a style of hip hop, into mainstream attention. The…
- Billy Dee WilliamsBilly Dee Williams became an actor only to pay for paints. He had wanted to be a painter.